Star Trek: Heronas  Gone in 65 seconds
by Snorpenbass
Summary: First episode of Star Trek: Heronas, following my earlier pilot. The continuing adventures of Trip Tucker, T'Pol, the Buran-class starship Heronas and its eternal quest to explore, courier and break speed limits. T for occasional innuendo & language.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Notes:** Welcome to the very first real episode of Star Trek: Heronas, my own personal Enterprise spinoff. This particular one is _not_ going to be a very action-y episode, mostly because every story needs a brief lull before the action truly kicks off. A bit of characterization, some humor, a bit of preparation for future fics... To truly understand who is who and why they're on a ship named after a Greek engineer, go read my fic "Star Trek: Heronas". Go ahead. I'm waiting. Done yet? Good. For those too lazy to read it now, a quick recap.

**Story So Far:** Trip Tucker did _not_ die in 2161, 2151, 2155 or any _other_ known date of death, no matter _what_ the history files, hidden or otherwise, says. In 2155, following the death of his cloned daughter, Trip faked his death and went undercover as a Romulan on a mission of sabotage, from which he returned a year later to find Starfleet and Earth at war with the Romulan Star Empire. After a last minute rescue of the Enterprise from a trap in the Gamma Hydra system Trip and T'Pol were reunited..._some_what, because T'Pol is _not_ happy about what he did. The two still love each other, but they've become somewhat estranged and uncertain of one another. It doesn't help that their bond, thanks to what Trip did to mute it for a year, has become slightly erratic. Now the two must awkwardly serve together as captain and first officer on the courier-ship USS Heronas, one of the first of the Buran-class ships built for speed and exploration rather than firepower and science.

…

* * *

**Prologue**

…

"_Bureaucracy: The time-honored tradition of shuffling documents from one end of a desk to another so as to _

_prevent people from messing up a functioning society too much. Note; occasional mishaps are expected."_

-Encyclopedia Ferenginar, Earth Year 2390, 373d Edition (only ten slips of latinum! Buy now!)

…

**Earth, Starfleet Headquarters, San Francisco, 2312**

"Hey, Mullins, we're off to that new Antaran place down in the harbor, the seafood's supposed to be heaven. You coming?"

Jason Mullins looked up from the console and frowned. "Damn. You know, I'd _love_ to, but I have these old records to clean up. Would you believe they still used optical storage back in the 22d century?"

"Yeah, yeah. Well, _we're_ going. Suit yourself."

He stared at the file, not really listening. God, who _designed_ this interface? What was wrong with the old oral command UI? But _no_, it was all touch-screens and holo-displays now, going all retro for the sake of retro. Clumsy as hell, all of it. He searched for the right switch in the myriad of animated icons on his screen, took aim, and pushed a button.

He paled. _Whoops_.

_Admiral Charles Tucker III_ suddenly became _Commander Charles Tucker III_, and a death date was altered quite noticeably even for someone who had barely been reading the files he was transferring. He looked closer at the file, and felt his mouth curl in misery.

_Somehow_ he'd managed to merge the only copy of the file with one commander Charles _Hacker_ (born and raised in New Jersey, age 32) who had died in the line of duty fighting Nausicaan boarders on the NX _Constellation_ in 2161, not long after the truce between Earth and Romulus had been ratified. And it was an error that would take him _hours_ to fix.

Hours, hours, hours...hours of navigating an interface someone had dusted off from the same period as the two mishapped files, trying hard not to slip on the damn glass screens...

He looked around. He was alone. So he saved the file, then reported taking his lunch break. He could always fix it later. Besides, it's not like anyone would actually _check_ the files about some stuffy old flag officer, right?

Right?

…

**End Prologue**

…


	2. Chapter 2

…

**Earth, Starfleet Headquarters, San Francisco, 2156**

Lieutenant Durman sighed. Another report from the frontier. He would read through it and file it, then quit for the night. Sleep would be nice. Let's see...disembarked two weeks ago from Space Dock, yada yada yada, ship experienced technical malfunctions at some place or other, blah blah blah, and...

He blinked.

"Oh you have _got_ to be _kidding_ me. _Six_ point _five_?"

He shook his head, mouth pursed in sardonic disbelief. Then he set the report to the side where he could see it, and sent a chat request to his superior. It didn't take long for his decidedly sleep-drunk commander to appear on the screen, looking irritated.

"_Yes? Durman? Why on Earth are you calling at such an ungodly hour?"_

"I think you might want to hear this one. The _Heronas_ are claiming they went up to six point five a few weeks ago. Repeatedly, and at considerable duration."

A lot of the irritation vanished from the commander's face, along with half the sleepiness. _"You sure?"_

"Says here they held it for hours on end, with brief stops for basic maintenance and repairs. Claims they may have licked the coherency problem entirely."

"_Heronas, Heronas...one of the Buran-class? Are they cleared for speeds like that?"_

Durman shrugged. "Not really, sir. I think five point eight was the recorded max during trials, and the _Heronas_ definitely wasn't cleared for higher speeds. Either they're lying or the eggheads at the Cochrane Institute might have new data to sink their teeth into."

His commander nodded, his expression pensive. _"...wait, who's the commanding officer?"_

"Says here...oh. Oh hell. It's _Tucker_."

Commander Harrington barked a laugh._ "Wonder Boy himself! No wonder. Well, if he says he can do it, he probably can. Still has to prove it, though. Send a memo to the higher-ups that we need some impartial observers on there, tell them to do it again a few times. Who knows, we may have a new official speed record on our hands."_

"Right away sir. Oh, and...sorry."

"_Yeah, yeah. Good night, kid, I'll see you in the morning."_

…

* * *

...

**USS _Heronas_, Gamma Hydra VI Orbit**

"...and that we're supposed to rendezvous with the USS _Feynmann_ outside Alpha Centauri to pick up two, and I quote,_ 'independent observers'_, to monitor and examine our claims of having reached speeds we weren't really allowed to reach. Basically, they're calling what they think is a bluff. Who here thinks they're in for a surprise?" Everyone grinned.

Captain Charles Tucker III had no real ready room (yet) for the larger meetings of command crew, but the canteen was proving more versatile than the one on the Enterprise. Yesterday they'd held movie night in three shifts. T'Pol had not attended, claiming to be busy with her work...he hadn't pushed her on that one, even though he knew it was a half-truth at best. Besides, it was just some romantic comedy from the early 1990's, nothing to write home about. He had next pick, though. Anyway, day before that they had set up an improvised ping-pong table for a couple matches, and today it served as ready room.

_I think The Fly. Or possibly The Haunting. The Robert Wise version, yeah..._

In a few days they'd be finished with the alterations to this deck and the canteen wouldn't be so damned crowded, but until then everyone ate in shifts. The chef, who was also quarter master, requisitions officer and played the piccolo flute on his off hours (go figure), had a decidedly Mediterranean bent to his cuisine, but his pecan pie was delicious. Tasted a little strange at first, until Chef let them know he used actual cane sugar instead of artificial sweetener.

"Well, that's it for today, everyone get to your posts, and don't remember to drop a couple credits in the birthday jar, Crewman Bing down in the hangar bay turns twenty-four on Sunday. It's ungodly warm and lonely down there with the shuttle, don't make him think we forgot about him."

With that and a smile to show he wasn't really _expecting_ them to have forgotten Bing, he closed the meeting and picked up his own padds before heading for the bridge.

It was...a _different_ style, he was sure, to what most captains were used to. But his ship was _not_ a pure science vessel, it wasn't _really_ military, and it wasn't a big one like the NX-class, so the small crew and the more informal and often cramped working conditions sort of invited a less formal style of command. He could get rough if it was necessary, but so far everyone was behaving.

_Even Wong._

He sighed, pondering where to begin with his grouchy pilot. The man was used to, no, _preferred_, a strict, disciplined military atmosphere where everyone obeyed rank and saluted and all that crap. Well, the ornery bastard was gonna wear casual clothes on Casual Friday no matter what. So help him God if he wasn't gonna force the man into one of his own Hawaiian shirts if it came to it.

_So there._

Now, where was he...oh yeah, fluidity rates in the...

…

_The High Council stared down at her with calm, calculating eyes. _

"_T'Pol of Vulcan, is it not true that you are a damaged vessel, that your katra is irrevocably tainted? You have displayed emotions, great flaws in your logic and a tendency to be ruled by your baser nature. You have even mated with a human. How stand you on these charges?"_

_The creature known as T'Pol howled, pulling ineffectually at her bonds. There was no reasoning, no logic, no mind in that mad, furious face. Spittle mixed with green blood ran down her chin, her hair was unkempt and her robes were rags of the kind a near-animal might wear for warmth only. The creature roared and suddenly broke free of the chains and her fingers closed around the throat of the chief Council-member even as multiple disruptor blasts struck her down. The woman died even as T'Pol did, and the face staring back at her in its death throes was that of her mother._

She opened her eyes and frowned. A dream.

_Vulcans do not dream._

She reexamined her logic, then amended the statement.

_Normal Vulcans do not dream._

Sitting up proved embarrassing. Her cheek, where it had rested on the padd, was damp with faint perspiration or condensation. It was also possible that she had salivated slightly. The only reasonable conclusion was that she had fallen asleep while sitting up. She hadn't done _that_ since...well, the only incident she could recall was when she was a child and had played with her pet sehlat for a whole day with only the barest nutrition for energy. She remembered her father's calm, patient lecture on the virtues of eating three meals per day and maintaining ones energy levels with a hint of fondness.

What time was it? 07.21 in the morning. The morning meeting was over, then. Not that she was supposed to attend, she had let Tr..._Captain_ Tucker know that she would be quite busy going through data gathered during the battle of Gamma Hydra for at least two more hours. Burying a twinge of irritation with herself for avoiding him, she looked down at the padd and tried to make sense of the sensor readings from when the jamming field went down.

_If he would just apologize..._

She exhaled in what was not precisely a sigh.

_Logic. Focus._

The wavelength on the optical camouflages on the jamming buoys suggested more than half the internal power draw went into that alone, the other half to the jamming fields. That explained the limited range and the requirement for multiple buoys. The Romulans had yet to perfect optical camouflage for _moving_ vessels, if they did...the repercussions would be unpleasant. The holographic drone vessels had been troublesome enough.

_Why do I avoid him?_

She blinked. Again, an emotional, irrational thought taking precedence. She was _not_ avoiding him. As such. She was simply busy. _Someone_ had to take care of compiling data, make sense of sensor sweeps, explain why the gravity had been briefly reversed in Crewman Gepplethwaite's quarters for thirty-six minutes and twelve seconds during their latest attempts at getting the environmental systems functioning. Apparently the crewman had gotten away with mere bruises, but still. It also showed that they were in dire need of a medical officer. One of the MACO served for now, their field medic, but even so.

She had to admit she was not looking forward to their success in repairing the environmental controls. The halls of the _Heronas_ were currently quite pleasantly cool to her, though _un_pleasantly warm to the humans. She would have to start wearing thermal underwear again if they _did_ manage repairs.

_I avoid him because it is pleasing to keep him 'at arm's length'. I do not wish for him to apologize until he has suffered discomfort for a while longer._

Pursing her lips she set the padd aside. She had already finished it, to be honest. It was _all_ finished. She truly was avoiding him, because she felt - an unfamiliar sensation - _felt_ it was not yet time to forgive him. And it was perhaps not yet time to let him know she was having nightmares. She hadn't even told Doctor Phlox about _that_.

She carefully signed the padds, looked about her quarters, then stacked them all together and placed them on the desk for later retrieval. First, attending to basic hygiene. A shower, fresh clothing, and then delivering her conclusions to the bridge.

And perhaps - no. Best not. It was not yet time.

…

* * *

…

**Romulan System, ch'Rihan, City Of Ra'tleihfi.**

The palaces of the Romulan Empire's grand capital were not so grand as to truly shadow the small but far older manor home at which a small flitter descended. Automated defenses scanned, approved and relented, and as the ship reached the small parking space by the front doors, the lone owner of the grand house exited, hands carefully behind her back in a traditional pose of cautious welcome. Hands clasped in front meant distrust, hands loose at the sides meant easy access to weapons, hands at the back meant enough trust to let one near, but with the potential for a hidden weapon at ones call.

Such traditions were necessary more than ever in these times of war.

A lone woman in full dress regalia, honor blade at her side, exited the flitter and bowed to the mistress of the house, saluting fist to heart. "Mother."

The older woman nodded in return. "Daughter. Is your hunt fruitful?"

"Yes, mother. I tracked down a smuggler who was present at the battle and escaped before the Starfleet cowards could capture him. He gave me the name of the one dealing the lethal blow. Charles Tucker III, captain of a Terran vessel named _Heronas_."

"Excellent. The House of i'Kaleh tr'Ihaimehn shall be avenged."

Tal'Dira nodded. "Yes. Who shall do the deed?"

"You. Who else?"

She tried not to let her disappointment show. But astute and perceptive as always, her mother picked up on the subtle shift in her features. "What is it?"

"I...I had hoped for some time for my own pursuits."

Her mother frowned. "Pursuits?"

"Yes. _Personal_ pursuits."

At first her mother looked confused, then she smiled broadly. "At _last_. Who is it? A handsome centurion? A court functionary?"

This...would not be easy. "He - he is neither."

"Then what is he?"

Deep breath. "He is a merchant marine. I have met him only once. And...and he has already refused me once."

Her mother sighed, shaking her head. "Oh, _Dira_..."

Her pet name. Always a bad sign.

"He is strong, and good-looking, and the ship he was with is-"

"No, child. _No_. A mere merchant? Not even a _soldier_? Out of the question. And he has already turned you down once, you say. As if this is a sign of import."

She felt her back stiffen. "It _is_. Do you realize how many males would murder their best friend to have me? How many _have_? I _threw_ myself at this one, as a test, and he refused. _Refused_! That alone proves that his honor is greater than most, and he is, as you say, a mere merchant."

Dirantra shook her head again, sighed once more, and finally looked up. "Very well. If during your journey to avenge your father you can find this - this _merchant_, and bring him here for my approval, I will listen. But only listen!"

"Yes, mother!" Her heart beat twice as fast and her cheeks flushed olive with relief.

"What is his name, this merchant who managed to impress my wayward warrior of a daughter so?"

She smiled at her mother. "Cunaehr."

…

* * *

…

**Daedalus-Class USS _Feynmann_, Alpha Centauri IV Orbit**

Some people found the exploits of the original Enterprise crew fascinating, thrilling, exciting. Doctor Erwin Burkhart was not one of them. "Six point five. Six point five. No, no, I can't see it. There's no way in _hell_ he coaxed that out of a Buran, I don't care _whose_ little golden boy he is."

His fellow Cochrane Institute employee, Cameron Rhetz, leaned back against the bulkhead, smiling easily. "I dunno. He took the first Warp 5 ship up to a reliable five point six before he got snatched by slavers. God knows what he could do with a ship like a Buran. Damn things are basically an engine with crew quarters tacked on as an afterthought."

"Right. But that was after several Jupiter Station overhauls, at least one refit at Space Dock and various reverse-engineered solutions borrowed from all _kinds_ of ships out there. The Buran was right out of the wrapper. Hell, they only _barely_ got that high at the _institute_, and they're working on it full-time. No, the man is making it up. I just know it."

"You're just jealous because he's younger than you and already made captain. You served, what, eight years? Didn't even make lieutenant."

He glared at her. "I _served_, and didn't have people in high places to speed me along. He spent no less than a few years and made commander before he turned thirty. But that doesn't change the laws of physics."

"So how did he do it, then? Considering his breaking the speed record is the only way he could have made his rendezvous on time to pull the Enterprise out of the frying pan."

Sighing, he put the padd aside. "I don't know. Yet. But that's what we're here to find out, isn't it?"

She grinned. "Yup. Now, tell me again about the Triaxians, do they really..."

…

"Centauri Flight Control this is Feynmann reporting stationary outer system orbit, please acknowledge."

It took a second, then a voice replied through subspace._ "Feynmann, stationary orbit acknowledged, be advised Heronas reports further repairs necessary, arrival estimated in twelve hours."_

"Centauri Flight Control, roger that, over and out."

…

* * *

…

**USS _Heronas_, Stationary Halfway Between Gamma Hydra And Alpha Centauri**

Trip Tucker had not had all that many girlfriends. Not when you considered the fact that he was in his mid-thirties, and averaged them out over a period from age fifteen to today. There had been Yolanda Marquez when he was sixteen, she had taught him everything he knew about kissing, and not a little bit of Spanish, either, even if he did have a Texas twang to it due to her being from Austin. Sherrilee Dupont when he was nineteen and rushing through a basic aerospace and warp drive engineering night class and working days instead of going to MIT like his dad had expected him to, she had taught him all those things you didn't mention to kids until they asked about the birds and bees. Kim Danvers while he served on the solar steamer _Garuda_ on the Hong Kong/Johannesburg run.

...and then Natalie. The less said about _that_ fiasco, the better.

After Natalie he'd deliberately held off of serious relationships for a while. Little flings, accidents, at least one diplomatic incident ending in tragedy. Friendships, sure. Romance...not _quite_.

He knew his fellow crew on the Enterprise had joked about it sometimes. Not in a vicious manner, but it still stung. At least one of those wasn't even his fault. You stick your hand in a bowl of pregnancy-pebbles _one_ time and you get a reputation as the village bike.

Well, fine by him. Not like he could even _have_ relationships anymore. Not with Little Miss Grumpy having returned to her perch in the back of his head. Oh, yeah, he knew it was her. It had started out as a feverish sensation, minor throbbing and a feeling of being ill at ease, especially when she was in the same room. Took him a while to figure out what it was, for a while he'd been convinced he had the flu or something. Funny how he'd missed that.

Not _missed_, missed. Just...whatever.

...and _there_ she was. Perfectly on time, clearing the security check on the bridge before the seconds ticked to the very minute her shift began. Well, bridge...he still thought it might be more prudent to call it the submarine tower, due to the cramped space. All that was missing was the periscope in the ceiling.

"I have finished reviewing the sensory data, as scheduled. Lieutenant Gibbs reports that environmental controls may take a little longer than expected due to a minor infestation of Hydran grubworms in the ventilation nexus." Not even a 'reporting for duty', just instantly into business.

"Got it." So, no climate controls. Yet. The godawful heat continuing.

Well, he only had himself to blame. Jury-rigging new heat sinks and power conduit bypasses had been what had first fried the environmentals, they knew that now. Granted, they hadn't really worked from the _start_, but the reason they were _still_ acting up could be squarely laid at his own porch.

He frowned. "Wait, Hydran _grubworms_? Where the heck did _those_ come from?"

T'Pol seated herself at the previously unused science officer station, back ramrod straight, posture stiff and oh so very Vulcan. The sensation in the back of his head was...odd. Like he could almost recognize it...

"Apparently one of our supply shipments during our time at Gamma Hydra was infested. Chef Vezzini is currently checking all his pantries for signs they came from there, and Ensign Castor is going through the other storage spaces."

He nodded. Well, that made sense. Though the idea of some alien grubs possibly eating Chef's supply of pecans was unnerving.

"Well, that's all good. Did you finish the analysis on Romulan cloaks?"

She nodded. "It appears they are still a ways from perfecting a mobile, ship-scale cloak. However, the cloaked minefields and the sensor jamming qualities of their cloaked buoys will still make combat in their chosen arenas...difficult. Starfleet Intelligence has suggested detonating nuclear devices in space suspected to harbor such cloaks, since the electro-magnetic pulse may disturb the cloaks for long enough to allow targeting. Your quantum emitter beacon has yet to prove practical on a larger scale."

Sighing, he leaned back. Okay, if he couldn't overhaul the bridge into something bigger in the immediate future, maybe he could make the damn captain's seat _swivel_. Maybe add a padd in the armrest. Or simply comms. He picked up one of his brainstorming padds, noted the idea, then put it back.

"Well, let me know when Vezzini and Gibbs are done with their little project. Wong, run diagnostics on both nacelles, Sawyer, run a simulation on our freshly repaired phaser cannons, we never know when we might need'em. Nessler...be dour and mysterious."

The big German raised an eyebrow in unison with T'Pol. He grinned, and went back to his notes. Something was still bothering him, and he had a lurking suspicion it didn't have anything to do with his increasingly complex warp field equations, but rather something related to their little heart-to-heart discussion back when she came aboard...

He froze, staring into space.

_Dammit, I think I forgot to apologize..._

…

* * *

…

_**TBC**_


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Notes: **The quote in the prologue is entirely mine, as far as I know. It just felt like such a Ferengi way to describe it, I couldn't resist. And yeah, bureaucratic mishaps and bad translation errors have caused quite a bit of trouble, historically. Such as King James' bible translators mixing up "poisoner" with "witch", for example.

To have an idea of my own mental image of the character, please picture Dr Erwin Burkhart as being played by Robert Picardo. Oh yeah. King of the whiny characters (also, it would make him have appeared on *all* Trek franchises save TOS ;) ). As for Cameron Rhetz, I have no clue. Maybe a younger Marcia Cross.

The shuttle _Lucian_ is named after the Assyrian-Roman satirist who wrote a _very_ funny parody (among other things, including being considered the very first sf-story) of the then-popular travelogues of the period. The Münchhausen stories swipe about half their stuff from Lucian's "True History".

Time to show everyone a few glimpses into the mind of David Wong...

…

* * *

…

**USS _Heronas_, Alpha Centauri Outer System Orbit**

"...roger that, _Feynmann_, taking her in nice and slow. Shuttle will be incoming in ten minutes."

Wong glanced at the captain. It was hard to get a good grip on the man, to be honest. Tucker was...overly familial, awful at maintaining discipline, seemed to ignore half the regulations...and yet, somehow everyone was working harder than he'd _ever_ seen a crew work before. Though if the threats about 'casual Friday' came to pass, he'd have to lodge formal complaint.

"Well now, _that_ wasn't so bad, _was_ it?" Sawyer beamed at him. He could never tell if she was being sarcastic or not, though when she was actually making _jokes_ it was obvious.

"Can it, Sawyer."

"Yessir."

Tucker leaned back, scribbling yet another of those damned notes he kept making. The man was going through padds like they were candy. "Put us at a safe distance, and have Gordon take the _Lucian_ over."

Oh, good. _This_ he knew how to do. "Aye sir, moving into minimum standard system orbit. Feynmann IFF responded to and acknowledged."

Sawyer frowned. "They want to know why we're not beaming them over."

There was a snort of amusement from the captain. "We'll beam them over the moment we get a transporter installed in this bathtub. And a proper bridge. And working environmentals. And pigs start taking to the skies."

The Vulcan raised an eyebrow at that last comment, made as if to say something, hesitated, then closed her mouth. She did a lot of that. Apparently she'd served on the Enterprise with the captain, and there'd been some sort of incident with Terra Prime. David had been on a Delta-class patrolling the asteroid belt at the time, and he never really cared for gossip. Still...the way she glanced over at the captain sometimes suggested _some_ sort of interest. Being Vulcan, though, you couldn't tell what _kind_ of interest.

He took a breath, sent the pilot's request to Gordon's quarters where he knew she'd be awake (the damn woman never slept, apparently). Then another breath. "Is it just me or is the air getting colder?"

As if on cue, the comms bleeped. _"Maintenance to bridge. Reporting success in cleaning out parasite infestation, repairs to life support and environmental controls complete. Enjoy the breeze, folks."_

The captain grinned, leaning forward. "Out_standing_. Sawyer, log Maintenance for some extra overtime pay. They've earned it."

Wong felt his face stiffen. _Another_ blatant display of disregard for procedure and regulations. Cheating the BuPers for extra credits to crewmen? For simply doing their job? Unacceptable. Then again...it _was_ sort of nice with air that didn't smell like old socks.

_Maybe some things can be overlooked. For morale. _

The comms bleeped again, but this time it was from the shuttle bay. _"Shuttle Lucian to bridge, taking her out of the paddock. Will dock with Feynmann in five."_

"Roger that, _Lucian_. Don't rattle their cages too much."

"_Aw, captain, you're no fun."_

Everyone at the bridge showed visible amusement. Except Wong. And the Vulcan, though her left eyebrow twitched.

…

**USS _Feynmann_. Stone's Throw From _Heronas_.**

"...I _still_ don't see why we can't just beam over. _Yes_, they have no transporter, but the _Feynmann_ does!"

Cameron shrugged. "Captain Coleman says the transporter is off limits unless it's an emergency. This is not an emergency."

Erwin glared at her, but conceded the point. "Right. Though I still don't see _why_ Starfleet implemented that policy. There's nothing _dangerous_ about transporters, the technology is _quite_ proven."

For once, the younger observer frowned. "You know as well as I do that it's because of two main factors, one being the tax on ship's power, the second being that the transporters we have at the institute are a damned sight more advanced and safe than the ones they put on starships. Hell, the _Enterprise_ barely used theirs for more than cargo transport until they worked out the first kinks. And they _still_ had incidents with matter contamination."

He sneered. "Oh, yes, the mighty _Enterprise_. Oversized bucket of bolts. I hear the captain's on the short list for _commodore_ now."

She laughed. Laughed! "_God_, Burkhart, get _over_ yourself! The _Enterprise_ is probably the best damn ship Earth _has_ right now, and the crew probably deserved promotions _years_ ago. It's not entirely reasonable to think that anyone else being given credit for their work is meant as a personal slight against _you_. Or is this still about how they cut you out of the original engine program?"

He opened his mouth to make a suitably scathing reply when the airlock door chimed, then opened, and a deeply tanned or dark-skinned young woman of uncertain ethnicity entered. Her hair was cut military-short, a black stubble on a most well-formed scalp. He subconsciously began to draw himself up.

"Lady. Gentleman. Welcome to Air _Heronas_. My name is lieutenant Gordon, and I'll be your pilot this evening. If you'll give me your carry-on luggage, we can get underway?"

…

**USS _Heronas_, Engine Room.**

"...and as you can see, we made extensive modifications during the time she was still in space dock, pretty much had to in order to get her underway in time. Might wanna check the added booster coils, the improved coherency field and-"

"I have _eyes_, captain. I can see the modifications _quite_ well without being guided toward them."

Trip bit back a snarky response. The man was about as personable as a Tellarite. No, strike that, Tellarites were more _fair_ in their insults, this man was just petty and self-absorbed. Erwin Burkhart, long list of titles, was slightly below average height, a thin, dry, self-important little man with balding black hair, thick glasses in spite of eye surgery being commonplace these days, and was about as much fun to be around as a tax audit.

"Really? I've known you six years now, Erwin, I didn't know you'd suddenly gained x-ray vision?" That was from the other observer, Cameron Rhetz. She was maybe a few years older than Trip, tall, curvy, long red hair and dressed in a sensible pants suit. While it might be biased, he had a feeling she'd be more fair in her assessment of the ship and engines than Burkhart would be.

"What's _that_ supposed to mean?"

She ducked under a cross-beam, pausing to peer at a modified conduit, then moving on. "Only that booster coils are generally placed in the support struts of the nacelles and _not_ in the engine room, and the coherency field would be _inside_ the engine, not out here. You _know_ all this, Erwin. Doesn't hurt to listen to the people who actually _build_ these things. Oh, I _like_ this, did you add terillium dampeners...oh, that's _brilliant_, triple supports on the..."

Burkhart glared at the woman, then sniffed and continued as if nobody had called him on his bull. "I will require a full list of the modifications, and at least one crew-member to aid me in inspecting the systems."

Trip took a deep breath and resisted the overwhelming urge to throttle the man. "I think that can be arranged. We'll have to finish some repairs and reinforce bits that were just temporary the first time around, but we'll be warping at top speed within a few days. If you need anything else, I'll be on the bridge."

Burkhart snorted derisively but nodded, while Rhetz smiled warmly. Not entirely sure what to make of _that_, he just nodded sharply back, and then started for the turbolift. Halfway there he snagged Gutierrez by the arm, and kept his voice quiet while giving instructions. "Make sure they get everything they need, but keep an eye on Burkhart, make sure he doesn't tamper with anything. Man's got a chip on his shoulder about _some_thing."

"Yessir. You really think he'd do that?"

Trip pursed his lips thoughtfully. "No, not really. But it never hurts to be cautious. Besides, I've been around _way_ too many seemingly harmless observers who turned out to be religious suicide bomber freaks or Suliban saboteurs, doesn't hurt to be a _little_ paranoid."

…

* * *

…

Trip sat on the side of his bed, rubbing the last dregs of sleep out of his eyes, and glanced at the chronometer. 0300 hours. Just over four and a half hours after he went to bed. Well, four and a half hours was pretty good as far as he was concerned.

He slept badly. He did that a lot, lately. Nothing like in the Expanse, but still, not the best. The nightmares were getting _weirder_, now, too. Before, it had been mostly guilt-riddled things about the people he'd gotten killed during his year of being 'dead', now they kept being invaded by crazed Romulans...or possibly Vulcans, but the brow ridges suggested Romulans.

Funny thing was, sometimes they looked like T'Pol. Which was...not _quite_ the way he wanted to picture her in his dreams.

Oh, he had no issue with _dreaming_ about her, not even slightly. It was the having _nightmares_ about her that was sort of unwelcome and odd. He never had those before. Especially not her as a crazy Romulan.

Actually...now that he thought about it, it reminded him of the stories Jonathan had told him about the Vulcan ship they found derelict in the Expanse. But he was never down there, he was safe on the Enterprise at the time, so he wouldn't really know what they were like...which was probably why he was picturing them as Romulans.

Crazy Romulans. It was to laugh. Not a belly laugh, just a sardonic chuckle.

Honestly, he'd had enough of the brow-ridged ones to last a lifetime. He still had to rub his forehead every now and then to make sure the damn things were gone. And the people...

He shuddered. What kind of government, what kind of _society_ produced a people like that? Even the Klingons, what little they'd seen of them, had _some_ kind of personal honor, even if they sometimes only paid lip service to it, or didn't think it applied to non-Klingons. But the Romulans, oh they _talked_ a lot about honor, they carried around those wicked daggers and swords, 'honor blades', but when you got right down to it, all honor meant to _most_ Romulans he'd met was that they didn't take 'no' for an answer and they stabbed anyone who looked at them the wrong way. He'd spent _months_ in their midst and he had _no_ clue how their heads worked.

Hell, he still had the scar from that crazy lady who'd made passes at him at a bar on Drielsa IV. For one thing, she'd been _way_ too pushy, for the other he had still been kind of hurting over baby Lizzie and T'Pol and what he'd done to her, and third...the woman had been about as subtle as a freight train even if he _had_ been interested. Good grief, now he knew what some women meant when they said desperation was unattractive.

Not like Tiels'a. But he didn't like thinking about _her_.

Well, he had more than two hours until his rest period was done, so he might as well get busy. Now where did he put the design specs for the new bridge...

_I wonder what the perfect moment to apologize would be..._

…

T'Pol fell forward from her seat, put her hand in the meditation candle and winced at the painful burn even as it went out.

Another night of failed meditation. The migraines were getting worse, as well. She had inquired with the ship's temporary medic, MACO private Everhardt, but the analgesics used for humans were inadequate and the man had no real experience with xenobiology. Times were truly desperate if Starfleet was unable to assign an actual medical officer to a ship, let alone get a civilian doctor.

The air was heavy with the smell of copper-salts and she realized she had perspired profusely during her failed attempt at meditative rest. At some point she had fallen asleep sitting up, and her nightmares had returned. This time it had been Trip who had perished at her hands, and the vindictive fury she had felt still had her unsettled. She took a deep breath, and was only slightly surprised at how unsteady it was. Glancing at the chronometer, a garish antique farewell gift from one of the _Enterprise_ crew members that had been painted with a stylized, exaggerated rodent from some ancient Earth cultural phenomenon, revealed that she had been asleep for over two hours not counting the meditation.

She got up, put out the remaining candles, and went to shower and dress the mild burn. She would see the medic for proper bandages later.

…

* * *

…

"I'm telling you, Erwin, it's not what it seems. Have you _seen_ the alterations made here? Either he's a genius or he has one hidden somewhere. Not to mention the warp field calculations, they made even _my_ eyes water. Though I suspect the Vulcan is partly to blame there, they look a lot like work she did on the Enterprise a few years back."

Burkhart gave her a Look. "Yes, and the fact that your eyes seem glued to his posterior whenever his back is turned has nothing to do with it?"

Grinning, Cameron stretched and curled her toes inside her boots. "Hey, I appreciate art when I see it. Man's got a well-shaped butt, no doubt about it. Once this is over I might go for it."

He made a moue of distaste. "I doubt you'll get the opportunity. Besides, aren't you forgetting the impartiality clause?"

"What about it? Work is work, I never let work interfere with the personal. Anyway, we're getting the guided tour through the nacelle supports, so dress tightly. Don't want to snag something in those cramped tubes of theirs. It'll be fun!"

"You and I have very different notions of fun."

…

"Hey, Wong. Come sit with us." Eddie Sawyer waved her hand at the helmsman, ignoring the warning glares from the others at the table. Wong, looking decidedly uncomfortable in the cramped mess hall, made an endearing deer-in-headlights face and then made his way there, seating himself on the last available chair.

"Thanks."

"Eh, don't sweat. Us bridge crew gotta stick together during rush hour."

He snorted. "Rush hour, huh?"

"Oh yeah. Chef serves risotto, expect a stampede. That and his Chicken Alfredo." She burped delicately. "Pardon. _God_, that was good. If I knew ship-board duty gets you this good eating I would have behaved nicely sooner. Maybe not have punched commander Richter in the face like I did."

"_Punched_?" Gordon gave her a look of horrified amusement.

"The man was an ass. Sent a two-man team out to repair a comms array in the middle of a damned blizzard in the Antarctic. Hobards almost died, me I almost lost a couple toes to frostbite, and the man has the nerve to ask why it _took_ us so long. Next thing I know he's on the floor with a bloody nose. Got me another year of crap duty and no promotions. Only reason they didn't discharge me was because Richter had violated security protocol when he ordered the damn thing."

She smiled at the shocked looks this gave her. "Well, they're not _all_ like our captain who craps sunlight and makes warp engines in his sleep. Why, some of them actually _deserve_ being put in charge of stations like the Antarctica ones. Or me."

Nessler gave the others a flat look. "And this is how she talks when she _likes_ her current commanding officer."

Gordon snorted, then started coughing as something almost went down the wrong way, her face turning red with held-back laughter as Carter slapped her back. Eddie gave the big German a flat look right back, then stuck out her tongue.

To her carefully hidden shock she actually noticed Wong's mouth twitching slightly, though if it was in amusement or not she couldn't quite tell.

"So, Gordon, you were saying about our illustrious guests?" That was Dae Song, trying to conceal a smirk as well.

Gordon nodded, taking a few deep breaths, and then continued, interspersed with giggles. "Yeah, anyway, Burkhart is a jerk, but when he shuts up and listens he actually knows what he's talking about. The Rhetz woman...she bugs me."

Carter made a girlish face and batted his lashes at her, something _horrifying_ to see on a six foot six man. "Why, whatever do you _mean_?"

"_Stop_ that, you're gonna make me cough up a lung next! Have you noticed how she looks at the captain?"

Eddie nodded. "Oh yeah. She totally wants his liver with some Fava beans and a nice Chianti." Blank looks all around. "...oh come _on_, Anthony Hopkins? 'Silence of' - You're all cultural barbarians, you know that? She's a man-eater."

_This_ was easily understood, fortunately. Gordon nodded. "Oh yeah. I checked her records, and yes, Wong, I know I'm not supposed to do that, but it was a dull shift, okay? Not much call for a helmsman when you're waiting for the passengers to finish inspecting the garter belts and pantyhose. Anyway, apparently she's been married _nine_ times. And she's only forty-three."

"Whoa."

"Whoa is right, Terry. Whoa is most definitely right. Now get your Martian butt over to the drinks dispenser and get us some coffee. You having some, Wong?"

"Tea."

"Tea it is." She leaned back and glanced after the tall Mars-born tactical officer as he headed off. "He's _so_ well-mannered. Okay, so, we're sitting there and..."

…

Armando Gutierrez was a good engineer. No, a _damned_ good engineer. He _knew_ this. He also knew there was no point in being upset about the opinions of others when you knew you had done everything right. Sticks and stones might hurt, but the words of others only hurt if you let them, to mangle an old saying.

And yet he found himself wondering what the easiest way to arrange an 'accident' for Erwin Burkhart would be.

Maybe a gentle nudge over a railing? No, not guaranteed to kill him. Perhaps fix a plasma conduit to blow up in his face? No, the man was an engineer himself, he'd probably notice.

"Is this molybdenum _steel_? Totally inadequate for these purposes. Who installed this?"

He grit his teeth. "_I_ did. Mainly because we didn't have anything else to work with at the time. A duratanium replacement is being prepped in the machine shop."

"I also found traces of trellium-D in the bulkheads, are you aware the substance is actively harmful to Vulcans?"

No, an accident would not give him the satisfaction of being allowed to tell a court about _why_ he did it. "Yes, I am. Which is why it's _not_ trellium-D but an artificial alternative perfected last year to replace it, and alloyed with aluminum and duratanium. It's about as harmful to a Vulcan as touching a plaster wall is to a human. Now, you were asking about the alterations to the shield power and heat management, weren't you?"

"In a moment. This, right _here_. It looks out of place. What is it?"

He held back a sigh. Fine.

"_That_, is an inverted phase coupling, a design our captain reverse-engineered from what he remembered off of a Xyrillian transport he did repairs on a few years ago..."

…

David Wong opened the door to his quarters and stumbled onto his bed, dead tired. Ten hours straight. Ten hours of mind-numbing tedium, Sawyer cracking jokes, Nessler saying not a single peep, and the Vulcan looking increasingly hollow-eyed and uncomfortable around their equally weary-looking captain.

He wasn't the friendliest sort. A number of girls, commanding officers and co-workers had let him know this in his relatively short life so far. He could honestly say he had never gotten the 'It's not you, it's me'-speech, in fact almost all of them had been variations of 'No, it's you, it's _definitely_ you, not me'.

In all fairness, you didn't come out the Wong family a friendly person. Not with a mother who judged you on grades, success, paychecks and how much she could brag to her friends about you, and a father who had only expressed mild approval _once_ in his entire life, when he had agreed to joining the family shipping business at seventeen.

They hadn't spoken to him since he joined Starfleet instead.

He'd been told by a certain higher-up that he would be placed on the Heronas to report any improprieties or flaunting of regulations, in order to make certain Starfleet realized discipline had to be maintained even off the frontlines. This had been fine with him at the time. He'd always believed he could do without friends or family, especially since from _his_ experience family only got in the way, but when his benefactor retired suddenly due to an increasingly troublesome heart condition and his whole purpose for _being_ on the ship evaporated like sweat on Vulcan, he'd felt..._lost_.

Tucker was..._damn it_...a _good_ captain. No, strike that. He'd seen the man coax _miracles_ out of the crew in a mere matter of weeks of knowing them. All that Southern charm, the Florida country-boy drawl and those lazy smiles hid a surprisingly clever man who made David wonder just exactly why he still bothered starching his shirts. Regulations were all very well on paper, but it was, in fact, uncomfortable during a regular shift.

Which was another thing. The shifts. He'd never seen a crew so happy to take long shifts. A crew of forty people doing the work of _sixty_ on a ship that, frankly, wasn't _finished_ yet. He'd watched his captain spend a week on simply making the ship _move_, and when he was done it broke the speed limits.

And when he was done with each shift, David went back to his quarters and wondered why he didn't have any personal belongings. Uniforms, top drawer. Dress uniform, in the right corner of the locker, pressed and prepared. Medals, in a small box neatly placed in the lower left drawer. But no photographs of girlfriends, friends, family, siblings...

Okay. So. He was lonely. Nothing new there, right? And yet...for the first time since he joined Starfleet he was given very little free time, and the strange thing of it was that he was _feeling_ the loneliness for the very first time.

Earlier, in the mess hall, they'd been chattering about gossip and their careers and family and old movies or music. And he had felt absolutely and completely lost. He'd listened, but mostly he'd felt out of the loop. Like an outside observer. He served with these people, and found he wanted to continue to do so, but...

Great. He'd been tired to the bone when he came into his cabin, now he was wide awake.

Gossip. Well, _he_ was observant, _he_ could get in on that. Couldn't he? It was easy to see the various bonds they had already developed. Nessler and Sawyer were friends, Nessler had the whole dry, laconic thing going, Sawyer was the vivacious one. Dae Song, Gordon and Carter knew each other from the Academy, Carter had a crush on Gordon, Dae Song was happily married with three kids, Gordon looked at Carter like an overgrown little brother. Yeah, he could see when something was going on. But in all likelihood they didn't want to hear about themselves, and he was fairly sure he didn't want to get that personal with them, not at first.

But he _did_ want to fit in, to his own great surprise. So he needed something to break the ice. Something juicy. Something that would get him in the good graces of everyone else, but nothing vicious.

He sucked on his teeth. Great. Now he was _hungry_, too. Well, he had a candy bar in the stasis unit, no problem there. Sitting up to grab it, he suddenly realized the one thing nobody else seemed to have noticed.

Commander T'Pol was a fine science officer, and her business-like demeanor and skillful handling of crew and especially bridge crew had already made him reconsider his initial impressions of the captain, particularly considering how the two senior officers seemed synchronized like clockwork together. But what nobody _else_ seemed to have seen was how she kept looking at the captain when she thought nobody was watching. Nothing that interfered with her work or duties, just...the occasional glance. Which spoke volumes in humans, let alone Vulcans.

Just exactly what _was_ their relationship?

Bringing up public media coverage of the two was simple, since it was all on public record and thus part of the ship's media archives. Not much _of_ it, as such, mostly group photos and reels accompanying articles or news stories, like returning from the Expanse or the whole debacle with some friendly alien colony that was destroyed by Suliban terrorists to cast blame on Starfleet, and naturally the occasional science news that was mostly over his head. The part where the captain was suspected as the first example of a man being impregnated in a human-alien incident was...

...okay, funny, but nothing the others didn't know about. Nobody _talked_ about it, though Sawyer planned to give the captain a bowl of pet rocks for his birthday. David suspected that would go over about as well as a pint of water on a kitchen grease fire. But the incident itself, no names mentioned, _was_ known, and rumor _had_ leaked down, and by now even the Swede in maintenance knew about it.

So funny as it was, he couldn't bring it to the table.

He continued. The last few articles before the captain vanished for a year was...the Terra Prime incident. Which he didn't know much about. He skimmed through the articles, and realized that the xenophobic supremacists must have had a _damned_ good reason for choosing the captain, or ChEng as he was at the time, and the first officer, for their little deranged and misguided science project. No names were mentioned, but apparently _someone_ on-ship had been a Terra Prime sympathizer, and this rogue element was likely the reason they picked Tucker instead of Archer or anyone else on the command crew. Archer was more famous and would have made more sense to attempt a smear against, but they had bypassed him entirely.

Captain Tucker and commander T'Pol? The captain and the Vulcan?

The_ captain_ certainly wasn't showing any signs of that. Neither was _she_, really, but then - she _was_ Vulcan. And his mother's _faiblesse_ for bad romance fiction in which handsome Vulcan men were seduced by strong-willed human women, almost always redheads with Celtic-sounding names, _aside_, there were very few known inter-species relationships as yet, and none with Vulcans. Not to mention she was his superior officer at the time.

He read the rest of the news pieces but found no real evidence of an affair until he found the one authorized image from the funeral of the cloned child. The ceremony was seen from a distance, since the photographer had to have taken it from outside a security cordon, and all were seated while a Vulcan spoke funerary rites. So far nothing out of the ordinary. But something bugged him about it.

He enhanced. Enhanced again. And again. The pixels were getting in the way by then, but a filter or two later he had a workable though fuzzy image in which, at least to _him_, it became fairly clear that the then chief engineer of the starship Enterprise was holding hands with the Vulcan XO and science officer.

_Vulcans don't hold hands._

The thought was clear, and backed in fact. He had perfect grades in xenology studies at the Academy, much as with every other subject he'd studied, and he knew that Vulcans touched each other or other species in public about as often as humans had simians crawl out their posterior. It was more than a cultural taboo, it seemed against their entire _nature_.

And yet there it was.

The Vulcan certainly still had _some_ kind of interest in Tucker. As for the captain, it might be obliviousness or it might be out of respect, or it might be something else entirely, but...in retrospect, the complete lack of familiarity with an officer Tucker had served with for over four years was a bit...odd.

He smiled. Huh. Well, who was _he_ to stand in the way of love? In fact, if he wanted an _in_ on the camaraderie of the crew, getting a movement to put the two back together going, since it was obvious they must be estranged by now, would be _perfect_.

It was sneaky. And underhanded. And very, _very_ funny, when you looked at it from askance.

And it was actually a _nice_ thing to do.

David Wong slept like a baby that night.

…

_**TBC**_


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's Note:** _Four_ women? _Five_? _No_ idea how you guys get that number... Also, don't worry, folks. Trip isn't _that_ adorable.

Also, Thot? Tiel'sa is a little shout-out to that prequel you're eagerly awaiting. It's in the planning stage. And no, Trip don't cheat. He's a gentleman.

As for why it's taken so long, well, there's been various reasons, including gross-out ear infections, winter stomach flues, pneumonia and colic.

No, I'm not joking about the last one. And not necessarily in that order, either. Don't worry, I'm getting better, and my hearing's already returned in my right ear (left ear is still a bit muted, though).

The theme for this chapter is Good Morning.

…

* * *

…

_Trip leaned back against the big rock and watched the waves roll out and back in. It reminded him of a song. Otis Redding. He was more of an old-school blues fan, that and rugged blues-rock and lately jazz, oddly enough, but he could still appreciate Motown and the classics. _

_The air was warm, and a gentle breeze caressed his face from the east. He was dressed in his favorite shirt, blue with floral patterns, and a pair of swim trunks. His sandals lay in the sand next to him._

"_Penny for your thoughts?" _

_He looked up, squinting at the sun and the somebody standing there. "Just enjoying the quiet."_

_The woman leaned down and tousled his hair affectionately. "Sit here for too long you'll get sun-burned."_

_He smiled back at her. "Maybe I'll get red as a lobster."_

_She grinned. "I'm allergic to lobsters."_

"_Good, maybe you'll keep out of my room, then."_

_Elizabeth laughed, looking out at the ocean. Her hair whipped about in the wind. "No risk of me going in there. Only one person allowed in there besides you, and it's not me."_

_He frowned. "What do you mean?"_

_She looked at him seriously, the smile gone. "Remember the Alamo."_

_He blinked, and found himself looking at a shorter woman, dressed in medieval armor, her black hair cut in an unflattering, short, boy's cut with angled bangs and long sideburns. She sneered at him. "You bawl like a newborn. I should have killed you when I had the chance."_

_Who..?_

_Before he could respond, Tiel'sa sat down next to him, disruptor burn in her gut still smoking. She wore a Starfleet dress uniform and a small Turkish fez jauntily tilted on her head. Her curly reddish-brown hair was tied back in a pony-tail, and the green blood smears on her face were still glistening damply._

_For a moment he knew something was wrong with all this, that she had been someone else just seconds ago, and someone else before that. But it was good to see her again._

_She smiled at him, an odd expression on someone so Vulcan-like in appearance. "Don't listen to her. She's just got sour apples."_

_He grinned. "Grapes. Sour grapes."_

"_Ah. Not apples?" She pursed her lips thoughtfully. "Have you figured it out yet?" _

"_...huh?" _

"_It's not the waiting that kills you. It's the honor blade."_

_He blinked. "What?"_

_Crewman Taylor stood up, stretching lazily. "You're a smart man, commander. You'll figure it out. Hopefully before the twilight comes."_

…

Trip opened his eyes.

_Itchy._

Rubbing the grit out of them also flushed away most of the sleep, and he glanced at his clock. 04:37. Huh. Almost three hours sleep. A new record, for him.

Well, another day, another dollar. Or credit. He threw aside the covers and cricked every stiff joint. He'd heard once that cricking was fairly harmless, driving air bubbles out of where they didn't belong and causing muscles and sinew to go back into their proper places. It was pulling on joints that was bad for you.

Felt good either way.

A quick shower and shave, then a fresh uniform, and he was heading for the mess for his morning coffee.

He was in an odd mood. Pensive. Expectant. He'd had a weird dream, but not a nightmare, not as such. Damned if he could remember it now, though.

_Maybe I should start keeping a dream journal. Might be interesting. Lots of good ideas come when you dream._

He smothered a yawn behind one hand, and nodded to a crewman passing by. This early in the morning the only ones awake were the graveyard shifts, who looked about as tired as he probably did.

The coffee was strong and Italian, one of those types with too many consonants in the name and usually drunk in tiny cups, and he sipped it while secretly amused at how the chef could cook just about anything as long as it was Italian. He wondered how the man would react to requests for sushi.

_Italian sushi. Would that be Sicilian or just Southern Italian?_

He smirked, took another sip and shuddered as the massive amounts of caffeine wreaked havoc with his body. Well, he wouldn't fall asleep any time soon now, that was for sure. He waved his mug at the chef as he left the mess, heading for engineering.

Lieutenant Bertrand gave him a tired but friendly wave from her current perch on top of the warp drive, and he nodded back. "Morning cap'n. Armando will be up in an hour or so, he turned in early yesterday. Need anything?"

"No, just making the morning tour. Got everything you need? No trouble with our guests?"

"Oh, no, I'm fine. Just putting in some of the duratanium replacements. Metal shop's been busy all night, and we have to get these damn steel half measures removed before something breaks or melts on us." She motioned for the techie behind her, a Finnish ensign with an unpronounceable last name that made everyone just refer to him by Jorma, his first, to hand over the tool he was holding, and then she flipped down the welding visor again. He shaded his eyes with one hand and waited until she was done.

_Hoshi could probably tell just exactly which French province Bertrand is from just by listening to her accent._

He sipped his coffee, then nodded at Bertrand the moment the glare from the plasma torch faded. "Well, carry on."

"Aye, sir."

…

He popped by the tiny Science section, and found only a jumble of crates and boxes. Well, that made sense. They'd only set aside the room for T'Pol a few days ago, and besides, none of the equipment had been even unpacked...

_Y'know, I got nothing better to do. My shift doesn't start until two hours from now..._

…

* * *

…

T'Pol sat up straight in bed, cold and clammy with perspiration. Yet another variant of the recurring dream. A hallucinatory, illogical experience that held self-recrimination, guilt and shame. A few deep breaths and exhalations later she was calm enough to get up and enter her facilities for a shower.

She stared at her reflection in the mirror. Her cheeks felt gaunt, the skin thin and pale. The skin under her eyes was dark, and the whites of her eyes a faintly bloodshot green.

_I require more rest. _

Unfortunately, sleep was interrupted by the dreams, and meditation was interrupted by being so tired she'd fall asleep halfway there. Then the headaches kept her from actually falling asleep when she wished to.

She frowned.

_Perhaps something is actually wrong._

Well, there was no time for that. The ship was still under maintenance for the engine trial runs, and she had work to do. Besides, they had no proper doctor even if she did take the time to investigate things.

Once done showering and grooming, she dressed in her uniform, noting that Starfleet blue was actually slightly unflattering against her skin-tone. Red or purple would be better. White even more so.

But she did not remain with Starfleet for their choice in apparel, and so she buttoned up the last, glanced at the chronometer and then headed for the mess for her morning tea.

…

The chef provided her with his own special brew, a jasmine-scented green tea that was quite invigorating, and with that and one of the maintenance reports in hand she made her way towards her new office away from the bridge.

She blinked. The room was in utter chaos, crates lay open, parts scattered about everywhere, and tools and pieces of bulkhead metal lay everywhere. Underneath what appeared to be a half-finished computer console a pair of long, blue-clad legs stuck out, and _someone_ was humming to himself.

"...on the dock of the bay, wasting time..."

She felt her eyebrow twitch, and the muscle in her cheek the same. It was an...unexpected sight. But very characteristic. Her nostrils flared as she held down any visible signs of amusement, and instead she raised her hand to her mouth and coughed delicately.

The singing stopped, and a moment later Trip crawled out from underneath the console.

"Oh. Uh. Hi. Sorry 'bout the mess."

His grin was so infectious it made her raise an eyebrow, but she said nothing.

"Right. Oh, damn, what time is it?"

"Approximately 05:49. Your shift begins in forty-one minutes."

He ran a hand through his hair, blinking in mild confusion. For a moment she felt the urge to walk up and let her hand repeat the gesture, but the only sign of that was a slight curling of her fingers, after which she lowered her hand to her side.

"Well...guess I thought this would take less time than it did. Don't worry, I'll send someone up to finish if I don't get it done soon. But I've done most of the prep work, so all that's left is installing these things."

She nodded. It was obvious that messy floors aside, he had spent most of the morning cutting out floor and wall panels to make room for the consoles, not to mention drilling holes for the bolts and other security measures. The tangle of wiring in the corner was actually completely prepared for final installation, the open crates were mostly empty...

_He is quite skilled._

"I see. And will that installation take less than forty minutes?"

He blinked, frowned. "Well..._this_ one'll take twenty, roundabouts. The rest'll take a couple hours, total. I made sure Maintenance knew to pick up when their shift begins, so..."

"Then I suggest you continue with this one, and then finish for the time being." The eyebrow punctuated. After half a second of hesitation she put the mug on a crate beside her. "I will assist."

…

* * *

…

David Wong woke up, and wondered idly just exactly what he'd been so excited about the night before. Oh, right. He'd figured out that the captain and the executive officer had some kind of relationship that they were either hiding or ignoring. There had been some sugar-high ideas that did not pass muster entirely in the bleak morning light, but the gist of it was sound. He'd sound the terrain out with the others a bit during lunch, see if they could see it as blatantly as he did. He had his evidence, too.

He showered and shaved what little beard growth he had, then dressed, making a mental note to stop starching the shirts. It was uncomfortable during the long shifts. Once presentable he left for the mess, where he acquired some tea and a sandwich, eaten and drunk on the go. He was almost to the bridge when he realized there was activity in the newly christened Science section, already informally known as the Science Closet among the junior officers.

He peered inside, and saw the captain finishing the installation of a computer console while commander T'Pol crouched beside him, handing over a tool when he reached his hand out blindly.

He held the sight for a few seconds, then continued towards the bridge, fighting the urge to smirk.

…

* * *

…

Cameron Rhetz woke up slowly, mild headache spoiling any lingering wallowing in the luxury of sleeping in. She'd been up half the night reading those endless reports on alterations and improvements and gah!

_The man might be a genius, but God if he doesn't ramble on. And what the hell is an inverted phase coupling? I need to see that one._

Sitting up proved somewhat nauseating, so she cradled her head between her legs until the dizzy spell ended, and then slowly got to her feet and staggered to the bathroom. She looked at herself in the mirror and recoiled. Her cheeks were red and splotchy, and there were pillow imprints here and there.

_I look terrible._

She showered, applied make-up, blow-dried her hair, brushed it meticulously, tied it back in a quickly improvised French braid, then dressed in the dull but eminently practical visitor's jumpsuit. A fresh look in the mirror yielded results that were far more pleasing.

_Better._

The mess was a bevy of activity, fresh-faced young ensigns and officers walking in empty-handed and leaving with their breakfast of choice, few actually staying to eat. She spotted Burkhart sipping a small cup of tea with little finger daintily pointing outwards, reading a padd, and made her way there.

"Morning."

He looked up, nodded, and returned to his reading. "Good morning. Slept well?"

She briefly pondered telling him that she had barely slept at all, putting some innuendo into it just to annoy him, but decided against it. "Fine. You?"

"Not particularly. My quarters are next to the turbo-lift shaft and I kept waking up whenever it was in use. I've already put in a suggestion that they soundproof the rooms adjacent to it."

She gave him a weary look, then sighed. "Well, now that the pleasantries are over with, what's on your agenda today?"

He shrugged, still not looking up. "I'll continue reading the reports, then I'll take the captain up on the offer of a tour of the upper decks. I believe they also promised a trip in the worker bee. You?"

"About the same. Though I believe tonight is movie night for the crew. Been a while since I went to the movies."

"I fail to see the point. Our quarters are equipped with media-players and the same media library as the rest of the ship."

_Dull, dull, dull. All business, no fun. _

"That's not why they have it, I think. It's a bonding experience. Y'know, socializing. That thing you never do."

He looked up to give her a slight glare, then returned to his padd. "_This_ is interesting. See what you think of this."

She took the padd when offered, and looked at whatever it was caught his interest. It turned out to be a cross-section of a plasma regulator junction, but the design was...unfamiliar.

"Huh. You're right, that _is_ interesting."

"Look at the design note."

_Classified_.

"...even more interesting. Still, that's none of our beeswax. It just means Starfleet got it from somewhere they can't talk about."

He smirked. "...except that design was brought in by our illustrious captain. No other ship has it."

"So?"

"So why would his contribution be classified? He's an _engineer_, Cameron."

She sighed. "You need to stop reading those old conspiracy thrillers, Erwin. So maybe he got it from somewhere classified, or created it while doing something classified. He's in Starfleet. It happens."

"Well, I'm going to inspect it myself later."

The Danish was quite tasty. Unhealthy, probably, and she'd have to work it off at the gym later, but oh so sweet and crunchy.

"You do that."

…

* * *

…

Edwina Sawyer woke to her desk work station flickering to life, playing her favorite cartoon. Oh, she'd tried the regular types of wake-up calls. Standard issue buzzer, old-school alarm clock, loud music. Nothing worked. But Bugs Bunny singing badly mangled Wagner did, for some godforsaken reason.

She stared at the ceiling for a whole minute before sitting up, stretching, doing katas in her jammies, then showering and getting dressed. She was always efficient and quick about things. No dawdling.

Breakfast was coffee and eggs, she needed the protein. The padd with her daily routines was stuffed down one pocket, and after checking in with the MACO she made it to her seat just in time for her shift to begin.

The captain was nowhere to be seen. Neither was the XO.

Wong was in the captain's seat, since he was technically senior and thus had the con when the captain was away. He didn't look comfortable in it, though.

_Wonder what brought on his little bout of amicable socializing yesterday._

A quick scan of weapons systems and a check of the night shift logs later she was leaning back in her seat wishing her console had Solitaire installed. Maybe a chess program.

_What time is it? Right, only seven o'clock. Captain's late one whole hour. So's commander T'Pol._

She tapped her fingers on the armrest of her chair.

_If I didn't know any better I'd say they were knocking boots._

The mental image made her snort softly, which made Nessler glance over. The man had ears like a dog. She shook her head, indicating it was nothing important, and he turned back to his console.

The mental image reappeared unbidden, and she had to bite her lip to keep from giggling. It was imagining the commander saying in her deadpan monotone "It would be logical for you to take me now, captain" followed by the captain going "Reckon ah might do just that, missy" that sealed the deal and almost made her erupt in laughter.

_Goddamn it, he doesn't even talk like that!_

She distracted herself with some phase-cannon diagnostics, and eventually the burgeoning giggle-fit went away.

…

"...so, anyone know where our first shore leave's been scheduled?"

Nessler shook his head. "Nope."

Wong just shrugged. "Bit early for that, isn't it?"

She glanced at the console clock. 08:55. Captain was officially over two hours late. So was the science officer.

"I dunno, is it? We've certainly been taking double shifts for weeks now. If you gather it all up, it does make for some inevitable leave time."

The helmsman nodded thoughtfully. It was getting a bit disconcerting to see him actually be slightly social, for once. Usually, asking anything not related to a task at hand would have resulted in a faint sneer and a brief lecture on professionalism, but all morning he'd been, if not _friendly_, at least actively participating in conversations.

_Creeps me out. Who is he and what has he done to Wong?_

"Well, considering our location I seriously doubt it'll be any major resort. Risa is right out of the question, even."

This...made _sense_. "Yeah...hey, Nessler, know any places we might get leave on in the area?"

"Nope."

"Right..." She pursed her lips. "Guess I can check the star charts later, at lunch."

The bridge doors opened and the captain entered, looking somewhat hurried but still not rushing. There were a few soot marks on his cheeks, and oil stains on the uniform. He was followed by the XO, looking impeccable and exotically beautiful as always.

There were times she envied the Vulcan's ability to look her best at all times. Other times she just wanted to throttle her.

_Bet she doesn't wear any make-up either._

"Captain on deck!" Wong flew out of the captain's seat as if it burned, saluting and then suppressing a grimace as if he just realized what he did.

The captain just nodded. "As you were, Wong. Relieving the con...oh eight fifty-eight."

Wong sat down at the helm as the captain made himself comfortable and the XO seated herself at the back by the Science console. She glanced over at the two, and in spite of the hilarious mental image from earlier all she could muster was concern. They both looked so tired.

The captain smiled, reading through the logs. "So, anyone got requests for the first shore leave?"

_...did he eavesdrop on us before coming in? ...no. No, he wouldn't..._

_...would he?_

_...wait, don't Vulcans have extremely good hearing..?_

…

* * *

…

Sergeant Reiko Fujisawa opened her eyes as the buzzer blared in her ears, and within seconds had switched it off, made her bed and grabbed the monkey-bar she'd installed in the ceiling for exercise.

"...twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four..."

_...Everhardt complained about having too much to do to get to her own duties. Solution; assign Tyke to her to assist. Ask captain when we get a doctor. First section of Starfleet regulations state..._

"...seventy-six, seventy-seven, seventy-eight..."

_...need to do a full diagnostic on the EVA suits, send a letter to Starfleet Requisitions about those new counter-pressure suits..._

She stopped at one hundred, then raised her feet up until they were snugly in the holders and she was holding onto the monkey-bar with her ankles. Lift-ups followed by leg-ups and waist exercises.

"...eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-one..."

_...send mom a message, thank her for the cookies, let her know she can't send onigiri over official channels, they'll spoil, possibly if she can send it through a spare stasis unit, that would cost more, though..._

"...eighty-four, eighty-five, eighty-six..."

One _hundred_, and she dropped to the floor once she'd untied her feet. The sweat-soaked sleep-wear went into the laundry, and one shower later she was uniformed and ready. She glanced at her wrist-watch. 05:05. Twenty-five minutes before the men had to wake up. _Excellent_ time.

The watch had been a gift. Since such items were technically disallowed on starships due to risk of snagging, her dad had bought her one that was basically just a small disk that attached to the skin through an advanced form of static cling. The surface was holographic, and the watch could be scavenged for parts if absolutely necessary.

Coffee and donut in hand, she opened the door to each MACO quarter to check if they were up or not, those who weren't got their fishes warm.

"Wakey wakey, hands off snakey! Get up_,_ you miserable lazy little _punks_, move it, move it, move it! You all signed up for a pleasure cruise? Well _I'm_ sorry, these are the MACO, we don't _do_ fun, just hard work and godsbedamned _initiative_! Get yourself clean, uniformed and presentable in ten minutes or by Buddha I'll personally kick you out the airlock! Giddy-up!"

She kept the smirk down as the few not already up scrambled out of bed and into the showers. It was good being the boss.

…

"...and Tyke, you're assigned to assist Everhardt for now. I'll ask the captain when we get a doctor and can resume regular duties. Dullis, Rosenberg, you two get the amazingly fun job of helping chef for lunch and dinner duties, yes, I'm punishing you for sleeping in, get over it. Murtaugh, Settiger, Gardner and Kirby, you're on maintenance detail, Samuels and Darwin, you're on security duty. I'll be in engineering helping the good ChEng if you need anything. All clear? Dismissed."

She glanced at the padd as the troops marched out, trying hard to keep from grinning at the two who'd just been set on spud-peeler duty, or whatever pointless errand chef would set them on. Tomorrow they'd be up in time, she'd bet a good amount of credits on that.

Let's see...right, today they finished getting the duratanium replacements installed, and did the first cold runs of the engines. First run was tomorrow, and if they hadn't gotten everything right today they'd pay for it then.

_Funny, when I enlisted I thought it'd be all ground-pounding and action, never thought I'd get to use my engineering diploma..._

…

"_Good_ morning, ChEng, got anything for me today?"

Gutierrez looked at her and smiled, looking about as sleep-drunk as one could be without being comatose. "Oh, hey sarge. Yeah, could you grab a welder's visor and help Dawkins out? That'd be great."

"No sweat." Hmm. He was cute even sleepy.

_Is he married? Gotta find that out before I go any further. Damn, they grow'em tall in Argentina. Thank God I'm not in his line of command, that'd be annoying._

Finding a welder's visor and a plasma torch she made her way to the petite Californian with the freckles and duratanium girder that was _way_ too heavy for her.

"Whoa! Let me get that for you. Jeez, get help when you have to carry something this big. Where's it go?"

"Over there, in the corner."

…

"...so I look him right in the eye and says, 'No, sir, I have no idea.' Meanwhile the theater glue is _slooowly_ dissolving and his mustache is very slowly stripping off my upper lip."

Dawkins giggled, handing her another thin strip of duratanium for the welding. "So what'd he do?"

"Oh, put me in the brig for insubordination for two days, then got me latrine duty for a month. I was the hero of the barracks when I got out, of course. Anyway, that's how I found out I'm allergic to most types of spirit gum. There. That should do it."

The young crewman pulled out a scanning device and ran it slowly across the surface of the weld four times before nodding. "It's secure. Right, next one?"

"Don't mind if I do. Say, the ChEng, is he married?"

_Seize the day, Reiko. Seize the day._

…

* * *

…

The mess was once again full of activity. Morning had turned into early noon had turned into lunch hour, and in the kitchen two disgruntled MACO continued pulling the ends off of green beans, their fingers icy cold from the water. Chef Vezzini watched from his stove, making little comments whenever they took too much or messed up a perfectly edible bean.

The conversation at the table of the bridge crew on their short lunch half-hour was in full motion.

"...no, really, I swear to God, the guy takes one look at the bear and goes, 'That's not in the manual!' We had to stun the poor thing, then get a trolley to drive it outside camp."

Wong smiled outright, and even Nessler snorted. At which point Sawyer leaned back, satisfied to have gotten the big reaction of the day. "So, what's the news?"

Pierce-Hensleigh shrugged. "Sarge keeps asking about the ChEng. I think she's trying to be subtle."

Crewman Henry giggled. "She's about as subtle as a Klingon."

Wong cleared his throat, then leaned forward, resting his chin in one hand. "The captain and the XO are involved."

You could have heard a pin drop. Sawyer's eyes goggled, Nessler frowned slightly, Henry's eyebrows went sky-high and Pierce-Hensleigh almost choked on her hot chocolate.

"Say _what_?"

He grinned. "I have proof."

…

_**To Be Continued...**_


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's Note:** Most of them are really tired because they're still running double shifts. I think I mentioned that a few times. ;-)

And no, they did not reconcile off-camera. It's _way_ too soon for that, and besides, I have something much more fun in mind for this episode. This chapter, even. And I'm not that cruel.

By the way, if anyone wants to complain about the mention of credits (that is, currency) in this chapter, I'll just remind you that in the original series the Federation still used money (though rarely). The period of Enterprise is a post-scarcity economy, but it _is_ an economy, before replicators made money entirely useless to the average Feddie. Also, if there's no money, how do the Boomers live?

The theme for this chapter is Boredom & Tension. Just one more chapter, then it's on to the next episode. Told you it was a short one.

…

* * *

…

_**Enterprise. In warp, on course for Epsilon Eridani.**_

Phlox hummed an old popular ditty from his youth as he puttered about the medical facilities, tending to the animals and various critters while restocking cabinets and generally feeling useful. The worst injury he'd dealt with in over a week had been an ingrown toenail, which was a nice change of pace from the constant casualties of the war effort.

So many young men and women coming on board, dying in service of their home against a foe with no apparent motivation for their actions. It reminded him far too much of their time in the Expanse, only prolonged.

A chime on his console reminded him of one of his long-term projects. Almost three years ago, following the unsettling experience with the renegade Vulcans and the man named Tolaris, he'd set his computer to run a long-term simulation on the possible effects of the failed mind-meld on a Vulcan brain. He'd had to adjust it over the years following various incidents and afflictions, the last of which had been the unfortunate addiction to trellium-D and then her collapse after captain Tucker's apparent demise a year ago.

He could understand the commander, he truly could. She found herself in a situation where experiencing and understanding emotions became more and more important, and the substance had probably seemed a short-term solution for doing so without any further future complications. But the effects of even those diluted doses had been greatly harmful, and had badly damaged her neural pathways, already damaged by the so-called Pa'nar syndrome.

And while the syndrome had been healed, the damage had been done.

Vulcans liked to pretend they knew everything about themselves, but in truth they were as much in the dark as every other species were about how they reacted, how they thought, how they recuperated. The Denobulans had up until merely a century ago been completely uncertain of just exactly how and why their facial musculature had evolved such an odd range and defensive capability when their faces rarely made use of such at all. Ask an Andorian on just why they had four genders, and the best you'd get would be a sour glare. And as for humans, the things they did not know about their own bodies were still numerous. Science progressed, but there were always new, intriguing mysteries.

So the simulations had to be altered, had to evolve. While he'd sped up the processes being simulated, he couldn't set it at too high a speed seeing as this would muddle the results and make the final prognosis vague and useless. On the other hand, running it at real-time made it about as useful to diagnose as consulting tea-leaves or the locations of celestial bodies.

So double speed would have to suffice.

He sat himself down at the desk and called up the simulation results, pausing only to grab a bowl of snack grubs that were a secret vice of his. They were actually intended for one of his animals, but he'd tasted one once and had come to enjoy the soft pop of the skin in his teeth and the sweet-salty taste that followed, so he always kept an extra stash for himself.

His eyes pored over results, he moved three-dimensional images back and forth and up and down to inspect, and the more he read, the less prone to eating he was.

This...was _not_ good. Oh, no direct harm _now_, as such, but...

If these readings were true, his initial prognosis of the damage remaining as it was and not worsening was _way_ off. The combination of Pa'nar and trellium-D and some relatively recent unknown biochemical process in the Vulcan brain showed that within a few years or so, the commander would be...debilitated. Another ten years and she would be unable to speak or form long-term memories.

She was probably already having minor difficulty controlling her emotions, and any stress would likely exacerbate the problem.

Problem was, no source he could think of would be of use. Oh, he could likely prescribe some drug to ease the symptoms and slow the onset, but even so she'd have less than thirty years. After that, she'd be a vegetable.

He frowned. Well, no sources he would _like_ to use. There _were_...no. He would have to ask permission to send her data elsewhere. Besides, the only area where they had decent experience with brains with the same capabilities was...not exactly the kind of area the Vulcans enjoyed spending time in. For that matter, very few truly _enjoyed_ spending time there. The people there were rude, arrogant and had no concept of personal space whatsoever, as proven by his very brief time there as a youth studying neurosurgery.

...still. It wasn't _his_ health in question.

Sighing softly to himself, he set the bowl of grubs aside and began composing a letter.

…

* * *

…

_**Heronas. Revving up.**_

"Engines at 5% and holding. Warp field stable."

Trip watched Wong's skilled hands fly across the console and idly made note to brush up on his own flight skills. He was...not the best pilot around. Even compared to most average, every-day drivers and pilots, Trip was notorious for his complete lack of spatial awareness, and every car he'd owned back in Florida had generally been a dented hunk of junk by the time he'd driven it for a while. His history with shuttles and worker bees wasn't exactly stellar either.

Sometimes he envied them that. That seemingly supernatural sense of where everything surrounding you were in relation to yourself, to be able to assess distances at a glance, to be able to perfectly judge the space necessary to pass through a narrow crevice.

Then again, most pilots were complete clods when faced with a busted combustion manifold or a simple sensor array out of alignment. That was where people like him came in and saved the day.

"Right." He rubbed his eyes quickly, wondering just what in the hell he was going to do about the sleep thing. "Take her up to 10%, same procedure."

Not that he was the only one tired. But the crew had better reason than he did. They were all working hard, making sure the ship was actually finished, actually completed. At least he was only taking single shifts, after the bridge crew had quietly suggested mutiny if he didn't stop.

He was pretty sure they'd been mostly joking.

Mostly.

The engines pulsed slightly faster, but the ship remained stationary. To be honest, the whole procedure of a cold run was no different than the warp engine trials on land-based facilities, creating a warp field without inducing motion. It was slow, boring, and absolutely necessary for the results to be made official. Proving that yes, the warp field as described in his reports _would_ hold. He'd been through the process four times on the Enterprise. The observers had been more numerous back then, though.

"Engines at 10% and holding. Warp field stable."

Sawyer softly hummed to herself. "...and a partridge in a pear tree..."

"Fifteen, Wong. Fifteen."

"Aye, sir, taking her to 15%."

Trip once more pondered signing the current crew petition to allow the installation of minor desktop games on every major console on the ship. Either that or a separate screen for watching a movie or something.

_Never gonna fly. Starfleet frowns on passive entertainment._

"Engines at, yes, you guessed it, 15% and holding. Warp field stable."

He glanced at Wong. Was that a joke?

_Amazing._

_I hope._

…

"...at 75% and holding."

Trip smothered a yawn, hiding it behind a surreptitious thoughtful rub of his chin. Good God, only 75? How long had they...aw, hell. Three and a half hours, and they were only on their third run. Why didn't he remember the cold runs on the Enterprise being this dull?

_Oh, right. I was in engineering, making sure everything was working all right. So _this_ is why Jonathan always looked so pained when we were about to do this. Poor bastard._

"So...eighty, you think? Yeah, eighty's good."

"Aye, sir, taking her to 80%. What's the movie tonight?"

Trip blinked. Then his mind kicked in, rebooting itself from blue screen of boredom. "Uh, Prisoner of Zenda."

Nessler grunted, reminding everyone that he was in fact on the bridge. "Which version?"

_Well, at least our minds are getting some kind of exercise. _"Stewart Granger, Deborah Kerr, James Mason."

Nessler nodded. "Good. Don't like the Peter Sellers one."

"Engines at 80% and holding. Warp field stable. Does chef make popcorn?"

Wow, Wong was downright chatty today, wasn't he?

"Yeah. Eighty-five."

"Good. Taking her to 85%."

The bridge fell silent again. Then a soft mumble from Sawyer. "And to think, we get to do this five times more before we're done. Yay."

"Engines at 85% and holding, warp field stable, and since we've already done this three times we might as well go the distance. Nobody likes a quitter, lieutenant."

To Trip's shock and amazement, the weapons officer chuckled instead of grimacing. And Wong had not sounded his usual irritated or grouchy self.

_Maybe I should run a ship-wide scan for Suliban infiltrators. Starting with the bridge..._

"Ninety."

"Taking her to 90%, sir. Also, if at all possible, I'd like to request that next week's movie night be The Court Jester."

The bridge was silent, and finally Wong looked up, looking completely honest and innocent.

"What? I like Danny Kaye."

…

* * *

…

T'Pol had once read a human saying that yawns were infectious. Likely it was a psychological effect on observing another being perform an involuntary respiratory reaction, and she had thought it was something unique to them...up until today.

In truth, it was most probably related to her lack of proper sleep lately. But each time the captain-

_Trip_

-the _captain_ attempted to disguise a yawn, she felt an urge to draw deep breath as well. She didn't, naturally, since her control over her breathing was better than his.

He was _irritating_ her.

It was irrational and illogical, but it was true. Examining her own thoughts only confirmed it.

She found the way his nose curved to be unattractive, the way he never displayed teeth when he smiled, the way the sides of his eyes wrinkled when he was amused, all these things made her feel...

...feel?

_Yes. Feel._

...feel increasingly incensed.

But what was _really_ causing her to wonder about her current mental state was the slow, constantly building urge to grab his hair and slam his face into the nearest hard surface.

She tore her eyes away from him, and watched the readings. The same as the three previous cold runs, naturally, the warp field fluctuating only slightly well within safety margins, all systems operational at peak capacity. A minor overheating problem in one coolant duct had turned out to be easily fixable due to a safety valve having been not completely checked after repairs were done, but that was during the first run.

Once, she had found such repetition reassuring. Safe. Now she was beginning to agree with the frustration and boredom the junior officers were displaying. Irrationally, she found herself wishing something would happen.

Anything.

_...and then, when he is barely conscious and bleeding, it is a simple matter to twist the head sideways to separate the vertebrae. Human spines are frail.  
_

She blinked. Her private channel was blinking.

"Commander, you have a personal message inbound. Do I route it through here, or..?"

She glanced over at Sawyer. "That will not be necessary. Simply relay it to my personal chamber for later review."

"Will do."

_Something is wrong._

She took a slow, deep breath, attempting to find her center again.

_I should not be entertaining such thoughts._

Again. Deep breath. Hold it. Release.

"Engines at 90% and holding. Warp field stable."

…

When the bridge crew headed for the mess in shifts, so did she, but only to grab some tea and a small plate of assorted fruits and vegetables. With these in hand she retreated to her quarters, where she spent a few minutes tidying up before seating herself at the console, tea in her hand. The code indicated the Enterprise, the little M01-designation meant official medical information. Frowning, she opened it.

Ten minutes later she exited her quarters, tray and beverage cup in hand, heading back to the mess.

It was...oddly relieving to know the cause for her growing irrational behavior. As if finding out meant reassurance in itself. But at the same time, she was wondering just exactly why this was happening. Doctor Phlox had been quite certain that nothing would degrade, that her condition would only remain damaged. She made a mental calculation on the results of his simulations, on just when the degradation had begun.

She was not entirely certain she approved of the results of her inner reckoning. Not even slightly.

She paused at the turbolift, leaning against the wall as yet another mental image of brutally murdering the captain-

_Trip, damn you!_

-the _**captain**_ appeared, and she found it more difficult to cast off this time. This time she used a standard-issue multi-tool, starting with his feet and working her way up.

She focused, slowly, and once she felt stable again wiped a few drops of perspiration away from her forehead.

_I am growing increasingly irrational. I should relieve myself of duties._

But instead she pressed the button on the turbolift door, and composed herself.

…

* * *

…

"Hey. Hey! Wallis, check the readings on those relays, right now. Dawkins, get your butt in gear and see to the containment field." Armando Gutierrez smothered a fatherly smile as his crew hopped to. In truth, there was no rush. The engine was in tip-top shape, everything was working, in fact it was working much better now than it did back when they were rushing off to save the Enterprise from Romulans. No risk of consoles exploding this time.

He glanced over at the two observers. The smiling one, and the curdled milk one. Both standing there watching the padd they'd hooked up to the monitoring systems, nodding, whispering, making notes.

Was it really a breach of etiquette and protocol to toss them out on their faces?

Probably.

Burkhart noticed, however, and gave him that patented little arrogant smirk. "Lieutenant commander, just the man. We're seeing some odd reverb here in the warp field matrix, would you care to explain why that is?"

"That? It's perfectly safe, here, I have the captain's own notes. He had to write it down for me since it's a bit hard to get your head around the first time." He fumbled about for the padd with the calculations and notes, then handed it to them. They read, nodded appreciatively, made suitable noises of awe, and then the comms chime sounded, rescuing him for the moment.

_"Bridge to Engineering. We're running our final hundred, will continue once the bridge crew's had their lunch. That'll be...1230 hours. Take a breather."_

He sighed. "Aye, sir." Then he turned to the crew. "Okay, you heard the man, let's bring her down nice and slow for the next run. Dawkins, I saw that, that's ten credits in the jar."

"Awww."

Crewman Dawkins blushed and headed over to the glass jar labeled Swearing & Grimacing and stuffed a credit chit in the opening in the lid. Genius thing, that. Each week the fund went towards something for the whole Engineering section, such as a new dart board or their vacation fund or whatever else they could agree on through voting. Though he was considering adding one for misquoting old comedy shows, too.

…

* * *

…

"It's confusing, isn't it?"

Erwin Burkhart looked up from the padd and blinked. Ah. One of the MACO. His eyes flickered down to the nametag on the uniform, Kirby, then back up. "Can I help you, private?"

The MACO sat down uninvited, placing his tray on the table. And here he had though he could get some privacy here in the mess. "The warp field calcs. Confusing even for the best of us. You're the professional, what's _your_ opinion?"

Burkhart felt the corners of his mouth twitch. "I'm sure any professional dissertation on the topic of the captain and executive officer's warp field calculations would be somewhat out of your depth, private."

Unfortunately, this didn't deter the man. Instead he grinned insolently while shoveling in a most delightful portion of Spaghetti Carbonara with a side dish of broccoli in a manner that likely would make chef beat the man's head in with a ladle if he saw it.

"Think so? I went to Pacific Tech, finished second of my class, specialty warp engines and damping systems. Enlisted when the Xindi attacked Earth. I can understand most of the number-crunching, but the higher forms give me a headache." The grin broadened. "In fact, you'll find just about everyone on this ship has some theoretical training. Starfleet is changing, Mr Burkhart. We're becoming less specialized and more generalized. The old ways of the naval forces are going the way of the dodo, and for good reason."

He finished his pasta, finished his glass of water and was done. But not before pausing to look at Erwin, his smile gone. "Robert Heinlein once said, 'A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.' Think on that, Mr Burkhart."

Then he was gone, leaving Erwin Burkhart somewhat confused and befuddled.

…

* * *

…

"Engines 45% and holding. Warp field stable."

David Wong spoke the words, but his mind was barely present during the forming of the words. Instead, at some point during the fifth cold run when for a brief moment it had seemed as if something was going wrong and it turned out to just be a loose wiring in the diagnostics console, his mind was half focused on the task, one fourth checking for any deviation, and one fourth...

_...four thousand, three hundred and seventy-eight bottles of beer, if one of those bottles should happen to fall..._

...let's just say it was keeping him from ripping the console loose from the floor and using it as a weapon on anyone nearby. God, the abject tedium was _mind-numbing_. No, strike that. Frank Herbert was wrong, fear wasn't the mind-killer. _Boredom_ was.

"Fifty, lieutenant commander."

The captain sounded as happy as David was. If that was true, it was likely _much_ worse.

"Aye, sir, taking engines to 50%."

Right, raise that control by five little steps on the graded scale, push that button there, and wait for something to go boom.

_Please_, go boom. Or clonk. Or plop.

Anything?

No?

Hell with _you_, then.

_...there'll be four thousand, three hundred and seventy-seven bottles on the wall..._

"Engines 50% and holding. Warp field steady."

It wasn't even funny making variations any more. During fourth and fifth he'd changed the response slightly each time. Then he'd switched the order, warp field first and engines second. Then he'd made little alterations in how to say the word 'percent'.

By now he was just waiting to be done.

Well, at least the shifts were going to be back to normal now that every single repair was over and done with. Knock on wood.

"Fifty-five?"

Huh?

"Oh, right. Taking engines to 55%. Sorry, sir."

"Keep your mind on the job, Wong. Even though it's boring."

"Yessir.

_That was amateurish, David. You're not an amateur. Don't make mistakes because of the dullness of your task._

"Engines 55% and holding. Warp field steady."

_...if one of those bottles should happen to fall there'd be four thousand three hundred and seventy-six bottles on the wall..._

…

* * *

…

Trip stared at the display, tongue poking at the inside of his cheek in anticipation. Almost finished. Ten hours of grueling boredom the likes of which he hadn't felt since that time in boot camp when he'd been on punishment duty to put together five hundred personal comm units.

That had been nothing compared to this. God, how he pitied Jonathan. Then he felt cold, silent dread grip him.

_If I keep tinkering with these engines, I'm gonna have to go through this again. And again. And again._

No, it was best not to think that way. Maybe he could find something in the regulations that let him hand the responsibility for captaining to a subordinate during the next time?

"...engines are, hold your horses, at 90% and holding. Warp field is steadier than a Tellarite's credit balance." Wong sighed. "Now I know what a grocery store cashier feels like."

Sawyer snorted, but the mood on the bridge was...okay, not _entirely_ cheerful.

He glanced back at the Science station. T'Pol was focused on her displays and readings in the way she only was when she was more focused on keeping her cool than not. A faint tingle at the back of his head was confusing, he felt frustration, anger, sadness, a whole bunch of conflicting emotions, but it was like listening through a mile-long pipe, distorted and muddled and probably not what it felt like. She wasn't happy, though, he could tell _that_.

"Take us to ninety-five, would you?"

Wong did so. "Taking engines to 95%. Chef is serving risotto tonight. With green beans."

"Yum." Sawyer was leaning back, actually keeping her eyes on the screens. Trip could tell she'd been distracted for most of the cold run, seeing as her particular skills weren't needed during the whole thing. At all. But now she was working again, running diagnostics, checking data feeds...

What was that line from that ridiculous song...

_I see you shiver with antici..._

"Engines at 95% and holding, warp field steady."

"One hundred, lieutenant commander. One hundred."

"Aye sir, taking engines to 100%."

He wasn't really a fan of that movie. Not his kind of music, to be honest. Going with a girlfriend to a live performance in the park had been a hell of a fun time, though.

"Wong?"

"Engines are at 100% and holding, sir. Warp field is very stable."

_...pation._

"Hold it for fifteen minutes, then power down. Good work, people. Good work."

_Thank God._

And then he was overwhelmed by a sudden image of gruesome violence.

…

Horst Nessler was used to seeing the captain make little weary gestures nowadays. He didn't seem to be getting enough sleep. Horst...was just fine. In fact, he slept like a baby. Of course, part of that was training, the other part something running in the family. His father, rest his soul, had been able to sleep anywhere, anywhen, no matter what. Unfortunately he'd fallen asleep at the wheel of the cargo lorry he drove on the Hamburg-Gdansk route and never woke up. Crashing 40 tons of lorry into a bridge pillar at 140 kph tended to do that.

But at this job? As long as he took his naps off-duty and slept when he was meant to, he was fine. Double shifts or no.

Also, risotto sounded absolutely outstanding. He _was_ getting hungry.

_Mutti always said I had a bottomless pit for a stomach._

A sudden faint noise from the XO caused him to look up from the manual on Klingon he was currently reading surreptitiously on the screen of his console, just in time to catch her steadying herself one-handed against her station, then straightening.

Then the captain frowned, grimaced as if stung by something, and gripped the bridge of his nose with the fingers of one hand. A faint trickle of blood exited one nostril.

_Odd._

"...captain?"

"I'm fine. Excuse me."

The captain got out of his seat, handed command to Wong, then stalked over to the science station, grabbing the XO by one arm and leaving the bridge in just a few more steps.

Sawyer stared at the closing door, then at Wong, then finally at Horst. "What was _that_ all about?"

…

She didn't resist as he dragged her to the turbolift, then inside, and didn't say a thing as they rode quickly to the next deck. He poked his head out to check for any bystanders, once secure nobody was going to disturb he once more took her arm and dragged her to her quarters.

Something was seriously _wrong_ with her, and the worry was currently making inroads on a serious partnership with the guilt he'd been collecting and nurturing for quite some time now.

_I should have seen this sooner. Should have kept an eye on her. Damn it, Trip, you know better._

In fact, she was not behaving normally at _all_. Her nostrils were flaring, her face was flushed an almost olive green, she was sweating, and when he dragged her she moved as if drunk.

The doors to her quarters opened and he had to almost shove her inside. She staggered a few steps inside, then simply stood there, swaying slightly.

"...T'Pol? This might be a dumb question at this point, but are you all right?"

She looked up, her gaze hazy, unfocused. "_Duhik_."

He frowned. Wait, he knew this one. "Yeah, I'm an idiot. What's wrong?"

She took a deep breath, shuddered, then suddenly seemed to regain her entire being, in just a few moments.

"...it is passing. I have...I have not slept well."

"That much is kinda obvious. What's wrong?"

There was another spike, then the link faded again, than another spike. Oh yeah, she was..._something_, right now.

"It will pass, for now. I still have-"

He interrupted. "Our duties are pretty much done for the day. The ship is pretty much as good as she gets right now, the observers are doing all the controlling and checking of the outputs and readings with Gutierrez anyway, so why don't you take a few moments to take a breath and relax, and tell me what's _wrong_."

Ow. Another spike. "I will be fine. It is nothing that can be taken care of at this time anyway."

Aha! "So there _is_ something? Look, personal concern aside, you're my XO, and-"

"_Will you leave me be?"_

He stared at her. He'd seen her emotional side maybe twice in all the time he'd known her. She'd only shouted at him maybe _once_ before.

"...there really _is_ something, isn't there?"

She stood there, breathing in and out for a long time. Right. Same breathing techniques as when she prepared to meditate, or neuropressure sessions. Then she nodded. "Yes. It is currently exacerbated due to my lack of sleep. It will not interfere with my duties again."

"Damn right it won't. I'm ordering you to take a full day off. I'll put it up as - I dunno, a Vulcan holy day or something."

"Vulcans do not have-"

"Yeah, yeah, _we_ know that, but nobody else on board does. Now, could you _please_, for the love of all that's good in the world, tell me just what's wrong with you?"

Nothing.

"...T'Pol?"

"No."

He grabbed her face gently in his hands and raised it up in order to look her in the eyes. "Yes. You will."

One hand grabbed his right, and pulled it off with that strength he kept forgetting about. "I will _not_."

"T'Pol, whatever it is, you gotta _tell_ me. There has to be _some_ way to fix it, at least for now." Ow, ow, ow, ow...there, she let go of his wrist. _Damn_, she had one _helluva_ grip.

That _spike_ returned, and for the first time a part of his subconscious realized what it was. Her hand gripped his other wrist, firmly enough to make the bones in it creak. Oh, but her eyes...

"I asked you to let it go. You insisted. Very well. I did not wish to tell you why I am having these difficulties, because they. Are all. Your. _Fault_."

Her other hand drew back, and far too late did his conscious mind warn him that no, it wasn't frustration...it was _anger_.

The punch sent him back into the wall, knocking his head on the bookshelf and-

…

"Captain Tucker. Charles. _Trip_. Please wake up."

Ow.

"Ow." A surprisingly gentle hand stroked his hair, and he opened his eyes. No, her hands were at her sides. Weird. He could have sworn... "What happened?"

"I hit you."

She was...looking quite calm. The tingling in the back of his head was...not as intense. Huh. Who knew. Even Vulcans had to let it out once in a while.

He touched a hand to his jaw. "Ow."

"I apologize. My lapse of emotional control was unforgivable. If you wish to reprimand me, that is only to be expected."

He frowned, then winced. Whoa. _Woozy_. "Yeah...no. Don't wanna do that. Damn, woman, you got a serious punch. Should go into boxing or something."

…

He blinked. Hadn't she been sitting on his left just now?

"Captain? I believe you passed out for a moment. You may have a concussion. You should see private Everhardt for a check-up."

He looked at her. What was he doing in her quarters again? Oh, right. Something about...something. Huh. Pretty eyes. "Yeah...yeah, I think you're right."

He tried sitting up, and slumped right back, his body not obeying him completely. He touched the back of his head, and found a rather large egg-shaped bump and a faint stickiness that turned out to be slowly oozing blood.

"Ow. Mind giving me a hand?"

"Of course." She curled his arm over her neck and rose, lifting him like he weighed feathers and sunshine.

The world spun. Light was way too bright. "I think we need to talk to someone. Like, like a doctor."

"Yes, captain. Private Everhardt is likely in the medical bay. I believe Maintenance finished setting it up late last night."

"No, no. Not me. Well, sure, me, but I meant about you. We need to check you out. Up. Doctor's opinion."

He blinked. The doors sure were-

…

...they were in the corridor next to the medical bay, and he found himself wondering just when they had walked over there. He remembered getting up off the floor with T'Pol's help...okay, she'd picked him up off the floor, anyway, and the doors opening, but for the life of him he couldn't remember walking there. When did that happen?

Private Everhardt, a tiny black woman in MACO uniform whose only sign of her current duties was a little white armband with the red cross and green crescent on it, popped out the door, took one look, nodded. "Put him in the imaging unit. I might not know everything, but I can run an old-school CT."

His feet barely touched the floor, or so it felt at least. Then he was lying down with no actual movement in between, his head fixed, and the stretcher was sliding inside the imaging unit. He heard voices outside, but couldn't make out what they were saying.

Then he was outside, being helped into a sitting position.

A pair of large pills were pushed into his hand firmly, a glass of water in the other. "You're in luck, captain. Scans show no sign of cerebral hemorrhaging and no fractures. It's a minor concussion. A couple of these, some bed-rest and some dermal regenerative treatments tomorrow morning and you'll be right as rain in no time. No hard work for a whole day."

"...I'm the captain, I pretty much have to-"

"You're not invulnerable, the ship is pretty much just going to do some test runs tomorrow, and I have a Vulcan on my side."

"...T'Pol?"

"I am here, captain."

_Back to that, huh. Very well. _

"Remember what I said. It's an order."

There was a long, hesitant pause. "Very well, captain."

Then Everhardt was back in his field of vision again, shining a pen-light in his eyes. "Right. Only slightly delayed reaction, memory lapses seem minimal and short term memory should be back by morning. You know, a century ago you'd be out for a week? Miracles of modern medicine. So, what exactly happened?"

He glanced at T'Pol. She had the grace to flush slightly. "I tripped. Fell in a corner, that's why the jaw's bruised. Got anything for that, by the way?"

The medic gave him a surprised look. "Why? No fracture, swelling should go down in a day. You can put some ice on it if you like. You can eat normally, no sweat. Chef's serving risotto tonight."

"Yeah. I know."

…

* * *

…

When the door closed behind her, T'Pol let out a ragged sigh and slumped against the wall.

Inexcusable.

Her loss of control was inexcusable.

It was unlike her.

...which was odd. The raw, naked emotion she had felt had been liberating, true, but it had not been a very _Vulcan_ reaction. In fact, had she truly let her anger go she would probably have done far worse than merely _hit_ him.

Still, loss of control was loss of control. She sat down by her workstation, called up doctor Phlox's letter again, and finally pressed the Reply icon.

The console blinked a light to show it was recording. "Doctor Phlox. Please advise on methods or means of treatment possible. Signed, T'Pol, commander, USS _Heronas_."

…

_**To Be Continued...**_

…

**Note:** "_Mutti_" is German for "Mom". "_Duhik_" is Vulcan for "Foolish".


	6. Chapter 6

**Author's Notes:** Well, asking what's up with T'Pol all of a sudden is a bit ignoring the way I've been suggesting she ain't in a right state of mind for some time, now. I've been hinting since the first Heronas fanfic that she's not doing all that well. Or Trip, for that matter. Gee, both are having trouble sleeping. I wonder if there's a connection there...

It's all there in the text, if you look. Really!

The general theme of the final Gone in 65 Seconds episode is: Speed & Relaxation.

…

* * *

…

It was the morning after the punch, and life was not amazing for Trip Tucker.

It was downright _embarrassing_, was what it was.

The split lip healed nicely, yeah, and the bump...but so far he'd already gotten a Get Well card from the bridge crew with a cartoon old man in a wheelchair on the front of it, a pair of roller skates with the laces tied together from Engineering, and a map of the ship and a flashlight from Maintenance.

Hilarious.

_Even Wong was in on the card. I have no idea why he's not Mr Stick-in-the-mud any longer, but it's starting to get disconcerting. The one constant in my life was him being vaguely hostile and cold, and now he's cracking jokes with Sawyer and helping them prank his commanding officer._

And here he was, in his quarters with a couple of ice-packs while T'Pol ran things on the bridge.

It was _his_ ship. _His_ engines. _His_ modifications. And the first official speed record would be made without him on the bridge.

_Traitors, the bunch of'em. Ought to bring back keelhauling._

Ow. After he'd healed up.

He stared at the wall, going through everything said and done the evening before.

She had been upset. Angry with him. That wasn't news. What was news was that she had _punched his lights out_. A single punch, too. In fact, if he wasn't so damned sure she'd somehow held _back_, she could easily have done a _lot_ more damage.

So something was wrong. He'd managed to order her to do something about it. Now, he knew she was a master of weaseling out of such agreements, being not only Vulcan but having served under Jonathan for five years as well, so he had to check on her, preferably within the next ten hours. Problem was, his concussed noggin failed to agree with him on that point. Every time he tried to stand up...

...the nausea wasn't even what kept him lying down. It was the giddiness. That light-headed woozy constant mild euphoria, coupled with his amusement at his own predicament that whispered in his ear that he should have noticed all the warning signs. Yes, even the ones he had never seen before.

But the absolutely most awful, _worst_ part was, he was missing movie night. Watching a film with a concussion...not fun. Unless you liked introducing the mess floor to the contents of your stomach.

The Court Jester next week. Fair was fair, Wong had abstained on his previous turns at choosing, so he was allowed one free change of schedule. This applied to every crewman whose turn it was to pick. Ensign Carter's choice would just be moved to the week after.

Still, a horror movie would have been better. The Fly, maybe. Or, oh, a Hammer film. Yeah, those were fun. All the fake corn syrup-blood flowing while Christopher Lee or Peter Cushing hammed it up.

Ow.

Maybe some time in the future.

He _felt_ the thrumming through the floor before he heard it. Engines revving up. Then the stars outside his window became elongated lines, and there was a very faint jolt of induced motion. He looked away from the spectacle outside his window.

_So damned unfair._

_And_ he'd missed out on chef's risotto. While he _could_ eat, he'd been too nauseous to try.

One punch.

_She really ought to consider professional boxing._

…

* * *

…

Lieutenant commander David Wong watched the display light up green all across the board and smiled slightly to himself.

"Warp six and holding."

"Very well. Hold the course for thirty minutes, then take us out of warp." Commander T'Pol leaned back slightly. To David she seemed slightly less hollow-eyed than yesterday, but it could have been just the lighting. In any case, it was oddly fun to have the Vulcan commanding for once. No jokes, no yawns, just business.

"Aye, holding course."

The commander looked around, watching their displays briefly, then switched on the comms. "Bridge to Engineering."

"_Engineering here."_

"What is your status?" Oh, yes. All business.

"_Everything's green down here, commander. The observers are observing, the warp drive is warping...if we were doing any better I'd have to go knock on Phil's wooden head here for luck. We're expecting Romulan boarders or Klingon raiders any moment with this luck."_

"I doubt that will occur. Our course is well within the Coalition sphere of influence. We will maintain this heading for..." Brief look at the clock. "...approximately twenty-eight minutes. I trust that will not be a problem?"

"_Not even slightly, commander."_

"Very well. Bridge out." She let go of the switch and leaned back again. "Lieutenant Sawyer, run a weapons check."

"Commander?"

"The most unassumingly unrelated thing can sometimes affect greater systems and cause failures. I have ordered various crew members to perform random tasks at set intervals to make certain it will not affect performance."

The weird thing was, that made _perfect_ sense. When he was twelve his father caused a brownout at his office by simply turning on the lights in the cafeteria, even though the systems were seemingly unconnected.

"Helmsman, calculate the course we will undertake after arriving at our destination."

"Aye, commander, calculating course."

…

* * *

…

_**Earth. Starfleet Headquarters, Supplies, Storage & Reallocation Facilities.**_

"Well?"

On the screen, operative 38 shrugged. _"Things are going just fine. Any trouble we expected has been conspicuously absent."_

Director Harris leaned back in his chair, allowing the operative a glimpse of the view outside. It wasn't the actual view, of course, or even the same office as last time, but it always helped to keep any agent in the dark about just exactly where their employer was located. The vista outside was at the moment set to a recognizably Venetian street. It was only if you watched it for more than an hour that you noticed it looped.

"No sabotage, no thefts, nothing?"

"_No, sir. The commander has been acting a bit erratic, and the captain had a bit of a clumsy spell earlier, caught a concussion. The commander settled down, though, and is in charge of the actual warp trials while he recovers."_

Clumsy spell? "I see. Well, that's good. Seems my fears were ill founded. I suppose it's a good thing the Romulans haven't figured out how to infiltrate this far, yet. Still...keep an eye on him for me while you're still there?"

Cameron Rhetz smiled and nodded. _"Certainly, sir. Section 31 takes care of their own. Oh, and sir? I have to say, Burkhart is a perfect front. Everyone's so busy hating him that nobody thinks twice about me. I barely had to do anything to keep cover. 38 out."_

The screen went dark, and Harris switched background vistas before starting to go through the Heronas comm traffic. Personal letters, official notes and memos...movie night was The Prisoner of Zenda, the Stewart Granger version. Hm. He preferred the one with Peter Sellers. More true to the novels. No tacked-on happy ending.

Oh, he'd keep checking up on Tucker from time to time. It never hurt to have an eye out for those who once worked for you, not the least because they posed security risks in the long run. He'd considered using some kind of memory blanking, or simply taking care of the man permanently, but had decided against it. If the Section was to keep operating under Starfleet funding indefinitely, they had to adapt. Acting like old-Earth intelligence agencies with murder and blackmail and brainwashing was a good way of making sure the big project the brass was discussing failed before it even got underway.

Besides, it wasn't as if they didn't have more elaborate, elegant methods these days. One of the things scientific breakthroughs had brought with them were ways of acting that had never been possible before. In the old days, murder and blackmail had been the only way. Today, you could simply make sure you had trustworthy people to begin with.

As to the fact he was deliberately confusing his own operatives as to his location, well, he might trust them, but that just meant he knew they wouldn't _voluntarily_ talk. The Romulans and Klingons weren't quite so subtle as the Section.

Something caught his attention. An official medical notice from the Enterprise to the commander. He opened it. Privacy was something that happened to other people.

What he read made him frown. It both explained a few things as well as concerned him, because if it was true it meant a key person of the crew was compromised. It also meant the good captain had _not_, in fact, tripped or fallen on anything, not even his own feet. Possibly afterwards. Judging by the brief log of the treatment, it had resulted in a mere concussion, which meant swift physical violence and nothing else. Still, it _was_ worrying.

A follow-up letter from the commander to Phlox confirmed his fears. This was...not good.

It would be easy to write Harris off as an aloof, cold-hearted bastard, and it was true he cultivated this image to prevent anyone from taking advantage, but truth of the fact was, he _liked_ his agents. He hand-picked them, he made sure they got proper training and resources, and at the end of the day he made sure they got an actual retirement in whatever manner they so desired. If it was one thing he had learned from observing intelligence agencies of the past it was that agents who were under-appreciated or expected death and/or torture from their own superiors were agents who were simply waiting to betray you. Happy agents were loyal agents.

And this did not bode well for happy. Or, for that matter, usefulness. While he liked Tucker and his other operatives, temporary or not, he was also enough of a manipulative son of a bitch to realize Tucker, T'Pol and about three hundred other sentient beings at the moment were _assets_ to be nurtured and encouraged, and losing one could spell disaster for Starfleet's long-term plans. Liking them didn't mean he didn't calmly consider them chess pieces. It was just that they weren't _pawns_.

Take Archer. The man had his flaws, that was no secret. Impulsive, erratic, sometimes prone to speechifying and mildly inconsistent on his choices...but he was also a natural-born diplomat and had already made the political situations in Andoria and Vulcan more stable than they'd been in centuries by the actions of him, his crew and his allies.

And he had five operatives constantly shadowing his every step, acting as crew of the Enterprise. At any time all five were prepared to lay down their lives to keep Archer in the land of the breathing. The reason, aside from Archer being the captain of the ship, was that losing Archer would lose them the Andorians, very likely the Tellarites, and definitely the Vulcans. Oh, the green-blooded bastards would still be allies of a sort, but they wouldn't have the _personal_ connection that they currently held. For one thing, he was fairly certain minister T'Pau had the Vulcan equivalent of hero worship regarding the good captain. Not _romantic_, as such, but definitely a touch of admiration bordering on overly friendly. God only knew why.

Which brought him back to Tucker and T'Pol. The amusing name his subordinates had invented for them, the Dynamite Duo, was surprisingly apt. Apart, they were brilliant. Together, they were miracle workers. Kill one, break the other. Break one, break both.

So he kept an eye on them both. He hadn't managed to get an operative on board the Heronas until the observation of the warp drive modifications went underway, but that would change, in time. Rhetz was a double observer, there to observe the engine trials, yes, but _also_ to observe the captain and his XO, make sure they weren't too distant to one another. Her report was both encouraging and worrying. The medical information he had just gained was worsening the worrying part.

He reached for his comm, and thumbed a specific frequency to the only agent he trusted with more than just assignments.

"Carmine? I want you to study the files I send you, and return to me with everything you got on the subject as well as solutions."

The voice on the other end was wryly amused. _"Sir?"_

"Consider it a priority. Oh, and did you get the file on the Axanar?"

"_Yessir. May I ask what brought on this new...priority?"_

Harris hesitated. "Call it an investment."

"_Yessir. I'll get back to you tomorrow."_

"Excellent." He released the dead-man's grip of the switch. Another 'improvement' brought on by security measures of the war. Like the new turbolift controls that required you to hold onto a control rod to keep the lift running, with built-in security scanners that made certain the one holding it was who he said he was, or wasn't under duress or dead. All it took was one Suliban pretending to be a Starfleet officer to cause disaster.

...then again, the Suliban had been laying low for some time, now. Since just before the troubles with the Romulans began. He pursed his lips. He'd have to check into that...

…

* * *

…

_**USS Heronas. Tearing up the tarmac.**_

"We are officially at warp 6.5 and holding steady. Minor vibrations reported during transitory phase, but warp field is smooth as silk."

T'Pol raised an eyebrow. "That is satisfactory. Hold the current course and speed for thirty minutes, then come out of warp, set a new course and repeat the process."

It would be superfluous to mention that the Enterprise had shook more when she first reached higher warp, or that she intended to attempt 6.6 and higher once the trials for 6.5 were over. After all, the finished engine and fine-tuned improvements had made the ship very much more able to handle the stress of high warp than it had been when out of space dock.

_Perhaps I should call Tr...the captain up to the bridge for those attempts. He would appreciate observing, at least._

"Commander, Engineering reports everything still in the green."

She leaned forward slightly. "Let them know we have attained our current course, and tell them the duration we will maintain it."

"Aye, commander."

…

Technically, they were going in a square pattern. A half hour thataway, a half hour thisaway, a half hour themsaway and a half hour thoseaway. But in fact they were moving in a slow, square spiral, with each stretch increasing the size of the shape. A half hour at warp 5 was a much shorter distance covered than a half hour at warp 5.1, and so on.

In his mind, David Wong played connect-the-dots with the course changes. It was something to do.

"Coming out of warp, commander."

"Very well. Power down the engines while they're being inspected. I believe we can send you off to lunch in shifts, as per reglations."

…

* * *

…

"No way. You keep saying it, I can't see it. And what do you have for evidence, huh? A grainy newsie photo from over a year ago? Nah, they're not an item now, and I doubt they ever were." Sawyer leaned back, looking smug.

David held back a sigh, and instead just shook his head. "You're so caught up with thinking it's all about the Rhetz woman that you can't see the obvious. You mean you don't notice how she keeps sneaking peeks at him? Or how when she looks distracted, he seems to get headaches? There's something up there, I tell you."

He wished Nessler was there. The man might only speak two words at a time unless prompted, but he was observant like a damn cat. _He'd_ know if anyone did. But Nessler was still on bridge duty, and would only go to the mess after they'd returned. It was actually sort of amusing, picturing the quiet, efficient Vulcan and the laconic German just sitting there, dead quiet, on the bridge.

"...no. Besides, she's _Vulcan_."

David blinked. "...yes. The sky is blue, what's your point?"

"Well, Vulcans don't have those kinds of emotions. I don't think they have any at all."

He smirked. "Spoken like a true Terra Primist. You think they'd evolve as a species if they didn't have feelings? Procreation kind of requires it."

She waved her hand airily about. "I'm _not_ a racist, it's just, y'know. _Vulcans_. Call them names, all they do is raise an eyebrow. They got _rid_ of their emotions, everyone knows that."

"You can't just get _rid_ of emotions, they're complex neurochemical reactions. They probably just bury them or something. Keep them hidden. Look, I got top grades in xenology, and one thing the text was very clear on was that Vulcans do not touch. _Ever_. Not in public, at least. And the photo might be grainy, but it's pretty blatantly obvious what it's _of_."

"Bah. Details. Besides, I heard from a friend of a friend who served on the Enterprise that Archer and our dear commander were _totally_ knocking boots."

This deserved the withering look of _'I have a lovely bridge to sell you'._

"This friend, would she be the one you told us convinced you that Tellarites sleep upside down like bats?"

Sawyer squirmed uncomfortably. "...okay, so she's not always the most _trustworthy_ source of information. Still, I'd believe _that_ before I'd believe it of the captain and first officer."

"Well, I know what I see. And sooner or later, you're gonna see it too."

"That would be right about the time we go to warp 6.5 and see pigs zooming along with us, right?"

His smirk deepened. "Oh, ye of little faith..."

…

* * *

…

"...which then go into the mixing valves here. I hear Starfleet has been working on plans for an engine area the size of a beer-bottling plant, but that would be at least a century into the future, if at all. Just imagine the warp-core that would support!"

"Wow. So, these coolant tubes, it's just water?"

"Oh, no, it's a carefully mixed blend of..."

Dawkins carefully hid a smile. This was the third time this week Fujisawa asked a bunch of innocent questions about the engines, smiling and nodding and hanging onto Armando's every word as if she gave a hoot. The amusing thing was, he probably had no clue why she was so intrigued by the engines all of a sudden.

_Why mister Gutierrez, would you mind showing me the way the pumps go in...and out...and in...and out..._

_Don't mind if I do missy Attractive Hardbody MACO, now, while I kneel down here by the pistons, why don't you lean suggestively over me with your chest an inch from my face until I blush and stammer and lose my train of thought?_

She giggled at the mental image, thankful that the plasma relays next to her were buzzing loud enough to drown it out. Those two were hilarious.

The smile she had on vanished when doctor/professor/whatever Burkhart popped his head into her field of vision, frowning.

"I fail to see what's so amusing. Maintenance of engine parts is a _serious_ undertaking."

She held back the glare that wanted to skewer him to the wall, and instead gave him a pained but patient smile. "Yes, it is, mister Burkhart. Do you have anything to add? You could hold the grating while I weld it onto the relay cover, but I'm afraid you're not wearing protective gear. Unless you don't need it?"

She smiled sweetly at him with the last. He looked a bit confused as to her tone, probably wondering if she was being sarcastic.

_Why, yes, yes I am. Amazing that you're the one with four titles after your name and I'm the lowly engineering tech._

"Well, then. I, uh, suppose you know best in this situation."

_Damn straight I do. Damn theorists._

"Now, if you don't mind?" She held up the plasma torch and kept the sweet smile on her face until he backed off. "_Thank_ you."

Lowering her visor, she started humming to herself. Well, at least they'd be back to normal shifts after today...

...wait, weren't _double_ shifts 'normal' for them by now?

_Heh._

…

* * *

…

Trip woke up, and for a brief moment thought he was at the beach house, listening to the surf crashing onto the shore outside. He was vaguely hot and sticky, too. But the rushing of the waves was just the rushing of the blood in his ears, and the hot and sticky thing was because he'd slept a sedative-caused whole _bunch_ of hours. He glanced at the watch. By now they'd be watching the movie.

He sat up, slowly, and noticed a general improvement. Everhardt was right. Modern medicine _was_ a wonder. At this pace, if he avoided pissing off or agitating his first officer again he'd be on his feet and commanding by tomorrow afternoon at the latest.

So what had triggered it all? Well, he knew she wasn't feeling quite well. Neither was he. What was it she'd said?

"_...all. Your. Fault."_

He had to talk to someone about this.

…

The screen showed a somewhat befuddled Phlox, dressed in sleep-wear. The night-cap was hard to take seriously._ "Yes? Oh, captain Tucker. How may I help? And please, make it brief, my sleep period is coming on like a Klernathian rhino."_

"Yeah, I'm asking if there's anything you might be able to tell me about my first officer's current health?"

The Denobulan doctor looked taken aback, maybe even a tad insulted. _"I most certainly will _not_. That's doctor-patient confidentiality you're encroaching upon, captain."_

Trip waved a hand in mild annoyance. "No, no, that's not what I'm saying. I'm asking if there's anything you _can_ tell me about it. As in, anything related to _my_ health."

Phlox raised his eyebrows, puffed up his cheeks a little, then nodded. _"Perhaps if you describe any symptoms you might have? Do you have an up-to-date medical profile?"_

"Sure thing, doc. Even got a fresh cat-scan, though I had a slight concussion while it was taken."

"_That shouldn't be too much of a problem. If you'd send it, I could do a cursory exam right now."_

A few quickly typed commands sent his updated medical records, and shortly afterwards the doctor was perusing the scans on his display. _"Interesting."_

"'Interesting'? That's never a good sign."

"_That depends. Your brain has...well, it's for the most part a healthy human brain, as far as I can tell, but with a few discrepancies. For one thing, this area here,"_ he indicated a somewhat more colorful spot on the scan, _"should be more subdued. If this is indicative of your normal state of mind..."_

Trip watched the man scratch idly at his hip, then yawn. "...what?"

"_...hm? Oh, right. Sorry. Well, maybe I should put this in a more simple form. Having trouble sleeping lately, captain? Migraines? Any other odd symptoms you might have left out to your ersatz medical officer?"_

Damn. He'd hoped he wouldn't have to tell him about that. "...yeah. Bad dreams, sometimes bad headaches. There's...me and T'Pol, we have this, sort of...well, we had...a kind of bond."

"_...yes, I am aware of this."_

"Really? ...I guess you would, at that...anyway, that bond, it meant we could share what we felt, at a distance. Theoretically, any distance, considering I could feel her while on a ship lightyears away. But the bond...I think I messed something up."

He gave the doctor the rest of the necessary details, trying not to take Phlox's look of disgust and anger too personally. When he was finished, the Denobulan sat down on his chair and rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

"_I think there may be a connection. Oh, you'll be fine, captain. Just fine. While the synaptic activity in your brain _is_ unusual, it won't damage anything permanently, at least not for some time yet. However, if there is a...bond, as you say, there is a chance that her condition is affecting you. However, to reveal anything further I require her explicit consent. I'm sure you understand."_

Trip just nodded. "Thanks anyway, doc. Sleep well."

"_I intend to. Farewell, captain Tucker. May we meet under better circumstances."_

The screen went dark, and Trip leaned back in the chair, rubbing his cheeks to keep from falling asleep again. So it _was_ related to T'Pol not being well. It was _his_ fault, according to her...

He felt himself go pale.

Oh.

When he faked his death, he'd asked the Aenar on Andoria to help him mute the bond. They'd insisted it wouldn't damage _him_ permanently...but they probably wouldn't have known how it would affect _her_.

_Goddammit, Trip. You screwed up. No wonder she's pissed._

He pursed his lips in thought.

_Time for Plan A._

…

About an hour later he exited the Requisitions offices triumphant, carefully locking the door behind him. Thanks to movie night, ensign Castor had been absent and couldn't log the captain 'borrowing' a few items, not to mention wouldn't know what those items _were_. He wasn't sure how to resolve it all yet with regulations and all, and it was best if the crew was unaware for now. The items secure under his jacket, he made his way to the kitchens, picked up a clear, tall vase from the cabinets and hid it inside a bag of potato chips after having emptied the bag's contents in a recycler. If anyone asked, he'd grabbed a late night snack to make up for his lack of dinner.

Fortunately, nobody asked. He made it back to his quarters safely, locked the doors against casual entry, and set to work.

He hadn't done this since first grade, but it was surprising how easily it came back to him. Cut the red silk paper, scrunch it up, tie it together, attach it to the green faux-stem, and done. About...a dozen would be enough. No water in the vase, but he had a bowl of little decorative polished glass pellets left over from his futile attempt to grow a bonsai tree during the first week of recovering after the genetic scrubbing. Boredom was a word that failed to convey his personal feelings about that time.

Once that was done, he picked up a pen and the other thing he'd 'borrowed' from Requisitions, and got to writing. There was really only one way of saying this, without getting his lights punched out again. He did not look forward to another couple days of bed-rest.

Right. So...

…

* * *

…

T'Pol returned from movie night feeling slightly nauseated for no apparent reason, uncomfortable and ill at ease. It had not been a pleasant experience. The crew had enjoyed the entertainment, but she had not.

Perhaps it was the subject matter. While the film had ended happily, she had read the novels before attending, as was her custom. The way the young protagonist was forced to stay away from the woman he cared for due to duty and tradition and loyalty was not something she found appealing.

As the door slid closed, she noticed that someone had been in her quarters. Nothing had been disturbed, that she could see, but...on the desk was a somewhat bizarre arrangement of what at first glance appeared to be a vase full of red roses, along with a small, bright red folded card of the human greeting variety.

The roses were made from fine _paper_, however, that and thin, green sticks posing as stems, apparently made from pressed wood and green paint.

She looked at the card. In metallic red lettering was written the words "Be My Valentine".

Her cheek twitched. Valentine's Day. February 14th. Not a date she remembered willingly. Then she opened it, and read the contents.

_'Dear T'Pol._

_I apologize about the card, it was the best option available. I suppose you're wondering what this is about, so I'll get to the point right quick. _

_I'm sorry. _

_I'm sorry I never told you, I'm sorry I went to the Aenar and messed up our bond, and I'm sorry I hurt you. _

_...now, the only reason I'm saying it like this is because I think if I told you this in person you'd lay me flat again, and I think we'd both prefer if we could avoid that._

_Not saying it's your fault, far from it, that's probably my fault too, just saying there's no point tempting fate._

_Anyway, if you hate me now I guess I can accept that, and if you want a transfer feel free to tell me. Just...don't hit me again. People will ask questions._

_Trip.'_

She stared at it for a long time, then the artificial flowers that she now realized he must have made by hand, then the card again.

She very pointedly did not sigh.

_I'm going to have to tell him all of it._

Her mouth curled in a faint expression of distaste, followed by another not-sigh.

_But I do not have to be in his presence while I do. He is right about tempting fate._

She reached for her desk console and sent a request for the captain's quarters.

…

"_...Tucker here."_

She raised an eyebrow. He had been asleep? Apparently the sedative private Everhardt had prescribed had been highly potent. She suppressed an irrational urge to reach out and muss his hair, seeing as he was on the other side of the ship and only present on the console display.

"Captain. We need to discuss something."

He blinked, then seemed to become more alert. _"...go ahead."_

"First of all, I do not desire a transfer. Not at this time."

He seemed to sag with relief. She had to clear her throat of a sudden obstruction before continuing.

"Secondly, an issue with my health that might be affecting the both of us requires me to seek counsel from the most renowned experts on neural injury and recovery available. Unfortunately, they are not what I would consider...appealing."

"_...don't tell me. The Tellarites?"_

She couldn't help frowning slightly. "...I would _prefer_ the Tellarites. No, I am speaking of the Betazoid."

He stared at her blankly for a long moment. _"...the what?"_

…

_**The End...of this episode.**_

…

_Star Trek Heronas will return with the next episode__**:**_ The Betazoid Connection.

…

_On the next episode of Star Trek: Heronas..._

…

"What kind of monster could _do_ something like this?"

…

"Captain, maintenance reports a crew member has failed to log in."

…

"Jesus, the neck's almost _severed_..."

…

As realization dawned, a shadow detached itself from the ceiling behind him. He quickly reached for the comms. "Captain! It's in the-"

Claw-like hands closed around his throat, forever silencing what he was about to say.

…

"We traced the transport back to a human Boomer colony, but before that, who knows? All we know is, it's killed twelve men and women here, and now it's on your ship."

…

"We're too late, captain. She's dead."

…

_All this, next on Star Trek: Heronas._

…

_**Cue credits...**_

.


End file.
